Flame and Shadow
by Miskcat
Summary: Maes Hughes must find the person setting mysterious fires all over Central, before this person finally attacks his ultimate goal - Roy Mustang
1. A dangerous and recurring trend

_**This story is the novella I wrote for NaNoWriMo in 2008: not my first completed NaNo, but the first time I had done a fanfic version. The original was posted on my LiveJournal, so some people will have read it already in its rougher form. But I'm tidying it up and will gradually be posting the chapters here, in final form.**_

Maes paced a small path, back and forth, working off his agitation as he stared at the blackened, smoking wreck of the warehouse. The engineers – yet again – were testing what remained of the building's frame to make sure it was safe before allowing anyone to get any closer. He could already tell from the street below that most of the roof was gone; he could peer through several of the empty windows along the sixth floor to see stars in the haze that still hung in the air after the fire had been extinguished.

None of the Investigations people were ever allowed into these buildings before these tests were done, no matter how urgently they needed to find clues about what had started the blaze. There had been a close call after the very first fire, five months ago, when a precarious wall collapsed onto the spot were two investigators had been standing about ten seconds earlier. And that had been the end of just sauntering in to poke around.

Maes had made that decision himself, and of course it had been the right choice. But that didn't prevent him from chomping at the bit, wishing he could just get _in_ there and start looking. Who knew what clues might be glowing inside the building, gradually fading and disintegrating under the influence of hundreds of gallons of water, to leave them clueless (in so many ways) once again?

The firefighters, policemen, and a few random citizens (where did they _come_ from, in the middle of the night?) still hung around on the street, huddling in little groups, talking quietly, wearily, after their exertions of the past hour. Most could probably have left by now, but as always, they seemed to need an unwinding period before returning to the normalcy of their homes. They congregated mostly near the three powerful lamps, mounted on generator trucks and pointing at the building, the bright yellow light throwing the scorched walls and crumbled brick into garish, nightmare contrast with the black backdrop of the sky. The air had begun to clear, though the acrid smell still seemed to pervade everything from the burned wood to the very clothes on one's back.

Maes had thought – everyone had thought – that the arsonist had finally stopped, when there had been that two-month silence after his string of seven burned buildings in the two months previous. But those hopes had been dashed tonight, when the shrill ringing of the phone in the darkness had shocked him awake, and he'd been informed that another empty warehouse near the edge of the city was ablaze.

This made eight in total. And he had no doubt that whoever had started this fire tonight was the same person who had instigated the previous seven. Which meant, he admitted to himself through a fog of gloom, that it probably didn't matter how quickly they got inside to look around. There had been no useful clues whatsoever, the first seven times, and it was very probable that there would be none tonight either.

He made himself stop pacing, straightening his glasses and casting a glance at his companion, who had remained utterly still and silent at his side through all the hustle and bustle of the cleanup and the tests.

Roy had been pretty active about half an hour ago, rushing to the scene after Maes had called him. Maes had actually hesitated, wondering if he should phone or not. He knew how badly his friend was going to take this, and after all, Roy had only gotten back a week ago from his long vacation in Xing. Great way to wreck any relaxation and benefits from the trip to his ancestors' original home. Yet in the end, Maes also knew there was really no choice. Roy would find out about this sooner or later, and better that he hear about it from his closest friend.

Plus there was the fact, as in all the previous cases, that nobody could put out a fire like this one as quickly and efficiently as the Flame Alchemist. The firefighters did as good a job as possible, and they were the best in the country for most situations. But in these particular circumstances, involving such huge buildings, their role ended up reduced mainly to holding down the fort and trying to keep the fire from spreading to neighbouring edifices, until Roy could arrive and stop the blaze altogether.

Which he had done tonight – again – as quickly and thoroughly as the other seven times. He had needed perhaps five minutes to stride around the building and assess things like the location of the main fire (or fires, since there were usually several burning inside at once) along with the apparent strength of the remaining structure. And then he'd been ready to do his pinpoint work.

After the first fire, he had explained to Maes what the process was when he dealt with something this big. It wasn't enough just to snuff out the main blazes; he simultaneously had to alter the oxygen content around the building to make sure smaller fires didn't expand into much larger ones while he was dealing with others. So he had to pick which ones to work on first, while preventing all the others from growing. It necessitated using both hands at once, snapping his fingers at different times, engaging his alchemy in several places to do more than one thing at a time.

But that was over now. Roy had successfully put out the fires in this building, his work flawless and precise as always. Then he'd allowed the firefighters to resume pumping water from their wagons, to soak down the charred wooden frame and remaining hot embers. Already the air in this block was beginning to cool down, and Maes didn't feel so much like he was working in a sauna any more. In a few minutes, he might even have to refasten the collars of his uniform jacket and shirt.

That wasn't his main concern, though. He glanced at Roy again, shoving his glasses back up his nose with the heel of one hand. Even the man's profile was grim as he stood, one hand stuffed into a pocket, gazing up at the blackened walls.

"Well, Roy," Maes finally ventured. "What do you think?"

For a moment he thought his friend wasn't going to answer, but at last Roy sighed, never taking his eyes off the building. "What do you expect me to think?" he returned. "You know as well as I do what this means."

Maes kicked at a large, half-burned chunk of wood lying partway across the sidewalk at his feet. "Yes, I do," he nodded. "I really hoped we'd seen the last of this guy. I thought maybe he'd left Central and gone to plague someone else for a change."

"Maybe he did," Roy murmured.

"Yeah, well, if he went somewhere, I guess he's back."

"It looks that way."

"And now we have to figure out what to do."

"Yes." Again Roy fell silent, offering nothing more, instead just standing there. Staring darkly at what the fire had done.

Fire. His own element.

As though he really needed further reminders of just how destructive the flames could be. He knew it better than anyone else on earth; he'd absorbed the knowledge and the devastating lesson until it had almost driven him mad.

Well, Maes thought bleakly, there was something else Roy now needed to consider, that he probably hadn't thought about (or, more likely, wasn't allowing himself to think about), and it was going to add immeasurably to the burden his friend already bore. But Maes had to talk to him about it. Now that the instances of arson had resumed, there was absolutely no other choice.

Before he had a chance to say anything, though, Ed and Al emerged around the corner of the building and walked toward the two officers. Ed hopped over a couple of beams that had fallen across the sidewalk and, as Al bent over to shift them out of the way, the elder brother drew alongside the two men.

"We've strengthened the walls as much as we could," he said without preamble, shoving an ever-present lock of dangling hair out of his eyes with the back of his hand. One cheek had been smudged with soot, and whitish powder liberally streaked his black clothes, but he didn't seem to have sustained any harm as he worked. Al, of course, in his form as a suit of armour, was rarely harmed no matter what happened to him.

Maes watched Roy instantly transform himself from the grim, depressed friend, helpless to stop what was happening, into the commanding officer Edward knew. He cast Ed one of his mild, sidelong smiles, and drawled, "That's good work, you two. Just so long as you didn't alter things so much that you obliterated all the clues we'll need to investigate. Lieutenant-Colonel Hughes and his men may have a few choice words for you if you destroyed important information."

Ed, as always, rose to the bait. His brows immediately drew down into a frown. "Don't get excited, Colonel," he said. "We do know what we're doing. You put out the fire, we work with metal and wood and stone. We could probably do this in our sleep by now, especially when this is the seventh time."

"Eighth," Maes corrected automatically. "And I for one am grateful for the way you've helped the engineers, Ed. You've really cut down the investigation time for us."

"Not that it's done much good." Ed's narrowed eyes ran over the high, many-windowed wall looming over them, ever on the alert for weaknesses and potential dangers. "There haven't been many clues to help you figure anything out, have there?"

"Well…," Maes began, but Roy interrupted.

"That's confidential information that the people in Investigations cannot reveal, Fullmetal," he said firmly. "You know they're not allowed to discuss ongoing cases."

"Yeah, yeah, well," Ed shrugged. "It doesn't take a genius to see that nobody's been able to figure anything out yet. Otherwise they'd have caught the guy by now. So if they're nowhere near catching him – there aren't many clues. That's the only conclusion that makes sense."

Maes smiled at him crookedly, mirthlessly, but didn't bother saying anything. Ed was right, and knew it. Everyone knew it, really. And the Higher Ups were getting really agitated about it, too, as Maes himself was aware to his own growing discomfort. If this went on much longer without an answer being found, heads were likely to roll, and he was under no illusions that his would be spared.

By now, Alphonse had finished shoving the fallen beams out of people's way on the sidewalk, and he joined the three of them as they watched the engineers making their final inspections of the outside of the building. "I think I kept the beams pretty much intact," the younger brother said, his hollow voice reverberating within the armour. "If anyone in your Investigations crew needs to analyze how they fell, Lieutenant Colonel, I can replace them later."

"Thanks Alphonse," Maes nodded. "I'll get someone to look at them right away, so we can keep them off the sidewalk."

Ed continued frowning, watching all the men and women of Investigations milling among the firefighters and various bystanders. Here, just at the edge of the light cast by the generator lamps, they could look over their shoulders at the darkness behind them and see the faint lightening of the sky above buildings at the far end of the street, indicating that the sun was on the rise. But it was the glaring light from one of the wagons that set Ed's hair glowing, seeming to create sparks in his bright, troubled eyes as he turned them up once again toward his commanding officer.

"Colonel…," he mused.

Roy glanced down at him. "What is it?"

"With the lack of real clues at all these fires, and no sign of what the arsonist used to set them…hasn't it occurred to you…" For some reason, the young man hesitated in a most uncharacteristic fashion.

"What?" Roy demanded, all trace of the sarcastic smile obliterated from his face. Instead, his dark eyes had sharpened on his subordinate, as though trying to bore into the kid's skull. "Spit it out, Fullmetal."

Maes wondered why his friend suddenly looked as though he wished he could stomp Edward under his boot. But Roy knew the young man even better than he did.

Ed pursed his lips. "Well…it's just…it's almost like this arsonist has some way of setting the fires without using anything to trigger them. At least, not the usual things like matches or torches or fuses or…" His voice faded under the burning glare of the older man's eyes, until finally he looked away, shrugging uncomfortably. "Forget it. I'm sure I'm just missing something – "

"No, Ed." With a sigh, Roy averted his eyes. "You're not missing a thing. And believe me – this has more than occurred to me. It keeps me awake at night."

"Then what are you doing about – "

"We're doing everything we can," Roy answered before Ed had even finished. "Let us deal with it for now. You're doing a great job already, with the engineers. Just let us figure out the rest of it for now, okay?"

Ed was probably as disconcerted by the mild response as Maes was. The young man searched Roy's face in puzzlement for a moment, but finally nodded. "Okay. For now. And if we find anything that will help explain things, we'll show it to you. But we've got to figure this out, and soon, or everyone in the city is going to start living in fear."

"I'm well aware of that, Fullmetal. Like I said – we're working on it. Meanwhile, don't you have other duties I've assigned you for today?"

It was an obvious dismissal, and Ed opened his mouth as though to protest. But after a moment, he closed it again and turned away with a shrug. "Yeah, sure. Boring research about something or other. We'll get right on it." He began to walk away, but flung back over his shoulder, "We'll talk about this again, Colonel. I'm not going to forget about it."

At last Maes and Roy were left alone again, and they returned to their earlier as the engineers began to wrap up their work. The head engineer glanced over at Maes, but was still consulting with his own underlings, so it would be another few moments before he came over to give the okay for Investigations to go into the building. Now would have been the time to introduce the question, but Ed had already done most of Maes's work for him.

And eventually, Roy went most of the rest of the way himself. "All right, Maes," he sighed again. "I know you were thinking it too. You might as well say it." The more cheerful façade he had mustered for Ed and Al had completely vanished now, replaced by the brooding frown.

"I wasn't thinking it – not exactly," Maes shook his head. "But it's something we – "

"Colonel Mustang!"

Damn. Another interruption, as Lieutenants Hawkeye and Havoc rushed toward them from a car parked farther down the block. Hawkeye arrived at Roy's side and frowned with a trace of accusation in her eyes. "You didn't call me," she blurted.

And yet again, the casual, amused expression had returned as Roy turned toward his two subordinate officers. "And good morning to you too, Lieutenant," he said. "I'm fine, thank you, and how are you?"

"Sir, I really don't appreciate being left behind like this." The woman wasn't about to be dissuaded. Behind her, Havoc flung a rueful smile at Maes, and shrugged.

"It's all right, Hawkeye, I knew there wasn't anything you could do here, so I decided not to call and wake you up unnecessarily. How _did_ you find out, anyway?" Roy wondered.

Havoc answered, "Someone from Lieutenant Colonel Hughes's division called Falman, who called us."

"Good grief," Roy snorted. "It's like a high school gossip circle. Well, I'm glad you're both so eager to help, but I've finished my own work here, and Hughes is about to start his. So you've wasted your trip. But I'm glad to see that you're so eager to get busy today, because we have a lot of work waiting for us back at the office. Where I think it's time to go."

And now it really was time to speak. "About that, Roy…," Hughes began.

"About what?"

"About going to your office. I agree, that's where you should go. And I'd like you and Lieutenant Hawkeye to stay there."

"I beg your pardon?" Roy's eyes sharpened on his face. "Hughes, we do have responsibilities – "

"I need to talk to you. Both of you. And I'd like to do it right away. So I'll make this official, as the Investigations guy in charge of all this." Maes waved a vague hand toward the burned-out building. "I'll be at your office in an hour, and I want you both to be there. Got it?"

The other three stared at him, and he could have laughed at their typical responses. Roy appeared irritated (because of course he had a pretty good idea what the topic of discussion was going to be), Hawkeye was typically wary, and Havoc was downright mystified. But that didn't matter, as long as Maes got what he wanted.

"Very well," Roy responded, voice clipped. "We'll be there. Lieutenant Colonel."

Maes rolled his eyes at the formality (he'd seen his share of these minor verbal tantrums), but Roy had already begun to walk away, Hawkeye falling into step beside him. Havoc favoured the Investigations officer with one last puzzled glance, before following after the other two.

Ah well, Maes shrugged, directing his attention to the head of engineers, now striding toward him. As long as they were there when he got there, that was all that mattered. Once he got Roy and Hawkeye alone, they were going to have a very long talk about a lot of things.


	2. An uncomfortable confrontation

Maes stepped into the office doorway and observed the people busy at their work: Warrant Officer Vato Falman bent over a couple of files, totally absorbed, Second Lieutenant Breda on the phone (feet up on his desk), Master Sergeant Kain Fuery scribbling calculations on a large notepad, and Havoc and Hawkeye conferring quietly at her desk, the man leaning against one corner, arms folded across his chest.

Fuery was the first to see the newcomer, and set down the pencil to greet him with only a slightly diminished degree of his usual cheerfulness. He obviously knew about the latest case of arson, and was aware that Maes would have just come from there. "Good morning, Lieutenant Colonel Hughes," said the young man. "Good to see you. How is Elysia?"

Maes beamed at him, even while inwardly chuckling at the way Breda grimaced and tossed an eraser at his co-worker at the next desk. Pulling out a sheaf of photographs, "Good morning, Fuery," Maes enthused, "I can tell you exactly how my little ambassador of sweetness is. See?" He walked over to Fuery's desk, leaning over it and fanning the photos out on its surface. "Look at this one, on her tricycle. Her pigtails are just bouncing, you can tell even in a picture. Isn't that the cutest thing ever?"

He continued babbling, chattering happily about each photo. It wasn't hard to go on at length, since he sometimes did it quietly to himself even when alone at his own desk. He'd pretty much memorized every detail the pictures contained by now. And why shouldn't he? Elysia _was_ unbelievably cute, every strand of brown hair, every sparkle in her eye, every touch of her hands, and every little breath and giggle that came out of that smiling, adorable mouth.

But even while he favoured Fuery and everyone else in earshot with a recitation of his adorable daughter's adorableness, he watched with half an eye as Hawkeye pushed back from her desk, stood up, and walked to the door of the inner office. She knocked twice, then opened the door, slipped inside, and closed it behind her.

"Oooh, and look at this one!" Maes went on, not missing a beat. "She's being held by her mother here, just after eating a piece of blueberry pie. Little pretty girl still looks pretty with blue lips, but she needs a big bubble bath!"

"She certainly is cute, Lieutenant Colonel," Fuery agreed dutifully. He looked up with a smile, eyes twinkling behind the round frames of his glasses. "In fact, both ladies in that picture are quite beautiful."

"Aww, Master Sergeant, I agree. I could _kiss_ you for that!" Maes puckered up, leaning further across the desk, enjoying the way Fuery jerked himself away, pushing his chair back.

"Um…Lieutenant Colonel…I..that is…" The younger man was so funny when he was flustered. Maes always knew how to push his buttons, and poor Fuery never quite caught on.

"Hughes!" A sharp voice from the inner office door heralded the emergence of Roy Mustang. "When you're quite through torturing my men, I want you in my office. And put those pictures away or I'll lock you out."

Maes straightened up, tucking the photos into an inner pocket of his uniform jacket, winking over at the chuckling Falman (the man had seen Maes pulling this sort of thing before, when he'd been in Investigations himself). Fuery laughed a little nervously, but waited till Maes had begun to walk toward the inner door before pulling his chair close to the desk again.

Roy certainly didn't look any more cheerful than he had at the scene of the fire. He said to the outer room in general, "Carry on, people, I'll occupy him for a while so you can get something done." Then he turned and strode back into the office toward his own desk. Hawkeye stood aside as Maes entered the room, then began to shut the door. Roy stopped her. "Lieutenant, that will be everything for now. You can leave us alone."

"Of course, sir," she began, but Maes put a hand on her shoulder.

"Actually, lieutenant, I need you to stay."

"Really, Hughes, is that necessary?" Roy grimaced. "Why don't you invite all of them in here, so we can waste the entire morning?"

"Sorry, Roy, but I'm afraid this really is necessary." Maes himself drew the woman out of the doorway and closed the door behind her, noting first how everyone in the other room had been watching the exchange. He turned and leaned back against the door, saying brightly, "Well, isn't this cosy!"

Roy, standing beside his desk with arms folded across his chest, made no answer but just stared darkly back. Maes wondered just how much his friend already guessed about what he had to say.

He sighed, his smile fading. "All right, I'll come to the point. Obviously you've already considered the fact that whoever is setting these fires may be using alchemy."

"Obviously," came the terse response. And nothing else.

Dammit, the guy was going to make this as difficult as possible. He must _really_ be worried, or he wouldn't be shutting down quite this badly. "Look," Maes murmured, "can we sit down?" He indicated the two couches at one side of the office, facing each other across a wide coffee table. "This isn't any sort of official interrogation or anything."

"Isn't it?" Roy demanded. "You pretty much commanded us to be waiting here for your arrival. Coming from someone in Investigations, that sounds pretty official to me."

"It's not coming from Investigations, it's coming from me, Roy. _Me_. Now, will you lighten up just a little?"

He recognized the merest slump of Roy's shoulders that indicated he'd relented a bit. "Sorry, Maes," the man said. "It's just…a shock, that's all. That it's started up again, after I'd hoped…" He turned his head away for a moment.

"I know, Roy, believe me. We all want to get this stopped once and for all. And I know why this is hitting you more than the rest of us."

"Do you really?" came the drawled sarcasm. "Excuse me if I doubt that."

"Sir," Hawkeye put in, "why don't you and the Lieutenant Colonel sit down, and I'll pour us all some coffee?"

Roy moved to one of the couches: the one with the better view of the doorway. He always needed to situate himself to watch the exits or entrances of a room, never quite able to relax while he was on the job. Maes took the couch directly across from him. In a moment, Hawkeye had gone to the credenza near the desk and set up a tray with the carafe of coffee, three cups, a pitcher of cream, a container of sugar, and three spoons. Bringing the tray over and setting it on the coffee table, she poured the freshly brewed, hot coffee into the cups, then seated herself on the couch beside Maes. While her boss watched the door, she was obviously going to watch him.

Maes dumped a spoonful of sugar into his own cup, breathing deeply of the strong, bracing aroma. "Now this," he said in appreciation, "is what I've been missing all morning." He stirred for a moment, then took as big a sip as he could stand. "Ouch. Still a bit too hot. But it's worth it."

Roy leaned back into the couch, crossing one leg over the other. Balancing his own cup on his knee with one hand, he stretched the other arm along the back of the couch, making an obvious effort to relax. "All right, let's start over," he said. "Sorry I've been such a grouch. Tell us what's on your mind, Maes."

"Well, it's the question of alchemy. I suppose you've reached the same conclusion I have: that since we haven't been able to find a single sign of incendiary devices in the previous seven fires – and I suspect we'll have the same result this time – it means that there probably weren't any to begin with. Which means," Maes raised a rueful eyebrow, "that we might be looking at alchemy here. Much as I know how depressing the idea is to you."

"It shouldn't bother me as much as it has," Roy admitted slowly, "since we've had other alchemists do destructive things before. But this hits too close to home, for the obvious reasons."

"I know. It's got to be disconcerting, at the very least." Maes took another hot sip of his drink. "Gosh. That feels so good. Anyway, I know Ed started looking around pretty early on, to see if he could find signs of the use of alchemy. From what he said earlier, I think he's pretty convinced we're dealing with an alchemist rather than an ordinary arsonist. Have you and he talked about this?"

"Not in so many words," Roy shook his head.

Maes paused. He found this a little hard to believe, considering how urgent the matter was. Still…this was fire. And Roy would find that problem hard to talk about with anyone, let alone Edward.

Well, he'd have to talk about it now.

"I think," Maes began slowly, "that we need to operate on two tracks. Investigations will keep looking for the normal tools of an arsonist, in case it's just someone who's really good at what he does. But you and I, and maybe Edward, are going to have to treat this as though we're actually dealing with an alchemist."

"Fine," Roy responded. "But can I ask for one thing?" He peered at his friend, an unusual anxiety filling his eyes. "Can we keep this just between us, until we get more information? Even if the other Investigations people have their suspicions, don't let on that we're doing a parallel investigation until we really have something concrete. People are nervous enough about alchemists as it is. Can you at least grant me that, Maes?"

"Sure, I don't see a problem with it, for the moment. But now I have to ask something else. Lieutenant Hawkeye, if I remember correctly, it was your father who taught Roy his flame alchemy. Is that right?" He was looking at Hawkeye, and she nodded, but he didn't miss Roy's alarmed look from one of them to the other.

"Yes, sir, that's right. Colonel Mustang studied with my father for several years before he went to the academy."

"And you already know the answer to that anyway, Maes," Roy reminded him. "You knew that's where I had been, before we were roommates at the academy. Why are you asking about it now?"

"I'd like you both to think back," Maes answered. "Roy, I know you told me that all the research and teaching materials for flame alchemy were destroyed after Riza's father died. And I know the intention was to prevent anyone else from ever learning that technique and using it in a destructive way. But after what we've seen the last few months, I'm starting to wonder…is there any possible way that some of that information survived? Could it still exist out there somewhere, and could someone else have found it?"

"So you really think," Riza raised her eyebrows, "that this isn't just a kind of alchemy that uses fire as a tool somehow – but that it's actual flame alchemy?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out." Maes set down his cup and leaned back, gesturing with his hands as he spoke. "I mean, look at what we're seeing. Fires set with no clear tools, no fire-starting fuel, nothing. The few eyewitnesses we have say that the flames just seemed to burst into existence spontaneously, all at once, even though they started at different places in the buildings. To be that precise, they'd either need a timer – in which case we'd surely find wires and other devices – or – "

"Or," Roy finished grimly, "they'd need to have been started simultaneously by alchemy."

"I can't think of a third possibility," Maes shrugged. "Can you?"

Roy looked down into his cup. "No."

"But it's just not possible, Lieutenant Colonel," Hawkeye protested.

"Look, proud as I am of the promotion, that's an awful mouthful," Maes put in suddenly. "We're alone here. Just call me Maes till we open the door again, okay?"

A little smile. "All right. Maes. But I mean what I said," the woman went on, "we destroyed my father's research and all his writings. I made sure everything was included. We gathered it all together and burned it in the fireplace, over a period of several hours."

"Everything? You're absolutely sure about that? I mean – and sorry if this sounds like I'm grilling you – did he ever write letters to other alchemists, talking about his work? Did he share the research with anyone? Could there have been communications you weren't aware of?"

Hawkeye shook her head. "No, I'm very certain of that. He knew how this skill could be used if it fell into the wrong hands. He was extremely careful about who he revealed it to."

"And even with those precautions it was still used to murder and destroy," Roy murmured, continuing his contemplation of the interior of his coffee cup.

Maes's heart sank as he shared a disturbed glance with Hawkeye. There it was again – the tortured memory his friend returned to, over and over, and could never escape. Of course he was going to make the connection now, as he watched someone use a skill much like his own flame alchemy to burn buildings down, right here in Central. But it hadn't helped that Roy had been sent back to Ishbal, not quite six months ago, to help quell the activities of a marauding band of rebels who were robbing caravans sent through that country.

He'd asked – almost pleaded, Maes remembered – that someone else be sent instead. But Roy knew Ishbal almost better than anyone who still held a position of authority in the military, and he was the choice of the big shots. And so he'd gone, grim-faced, at the head of a large contingent of soldiers. Maes had pulled some strings and managed to get himself assigned to the same operation, and had seen first-hand how the assignment wore on his friend's mind and self-control. Roy had absolutely refused to "fix the problem" via the use of alchemy – especially his own – but fortunately Maes and some of his operatives had managed to discover the main hideout of the rebel band, and had helped bring the problem under control within three weeks. The bulk of the rebels had been arrested, and most of their followers had dispersed. And Roy hadn't had to snap his fingers once.

The two men hadn't really spoken about it once they got back to the city. But instead of being able to go home right away to Gracia, Maes had spent their first night back in Central in a tavern with his friend, watching Roy try to drink himself into staggering oblivion. It hadn't worked, of course; no matter what Roy tried to do, to make himself forget, he would always remain the Flame Alchemist, who had done what he had done.

When he'd woken up in the morning, Maes having kept vigil at his bedside all night, he'd lain there in silence for a long time, meeting his friend's eyes. At last he'd managed a faint smile, and said softly, "I think I'm better now. As better as I can be, anyway." Maes had fixed him breakfast, and before he'd left, Roy had grabbed him at the door, pulling him into a tight embrace and whispering a fervent "Thank you."

But that hadn't entirely been the end of it, for it had only been about three weeks later that the fires had started. And Roy's nerves, already jangling from the sojourn in Ishbal, stretched thinner and thinner and became more and more frazzled, until he himself, in an uncharacteristic admission of weakness, had requested a leave of absence. He'd gone to a retreat in Xing, hoping to regain his equilibrium and attain a little peace.

He'd seemed much better when he'd returned. But Ishbal would always remain foremost in his thoughts. And unfortunately, Maes sighed to himself, Ishbal might actually be playing a role in what was happening now. And he hadn't even gotten to that part yet.

"The thing is, Roy," he said in answer to his friend's quiet remark, "we really have to know if it was possible for anyone else to get hold of Riza's father's research. You have to tell me that nothing – _nothing_ – escaped that burning in the fireplace. Are the two of you absolutely certain that there was no trace of this alchemy left, outside of that house?"

He expected an immediate, certain confirmation. But instead, Roy and Riza exchanged an uneasy glance. He pounced on it immediately.

"There is something, isn't there? What is it you haven't told me?" After another uncomfortable silence, he pressed the point. "Come on, you two, this could be important. I have to know."

For some strange reason, Riza set down her cup, then reached up to begin unbuttoning her uniform jacket. "It seems," she said calmly, "that I'll have to show you."

"Show me – what are you talking about?" Maes gaped as the jacket fell open and she began to unbutton the shirt she wore under it. "Now just a minute, Riza – what's going on?"

"Riza," Roy said, his voice stopping her immediately. "Don't. Please."

"He ought to know, Roy," the woman said. "It's all right. I don't mind. Better him than – "

"All right, we can tell him. But please – he doesn't have to see what I – what I did to you."

"What I asked you to do," she amended softly.

"Just tell me what you're talking about first," Maes put in.

Roy leaned forward, clasping his hands together between his knees. "Riza's father left one last record of his alchemy. It was a complex array that contained everything – every possible permutation of the alchemy that there could be. And he inscribed it…" He paused, frowning, staring at his intertwined, white-knuckled fingers.

Riza finished for him. "Father inscribed the array on my back."

"He _what_?" Maes cried. "He painted the thing right on your skin? What in the world did he do that for?"

"He…didn't paint it. It was a sort of cross between a burn and a tattoo. He wanted to keep one record of his work, but he wanted it to be constantly guarded. And I was the guardian he trusted."

"My god," Maes whispered. Sometimes he couldn't believe the lengths these alchemists would go to, to preserve or perpetuate their work.

"But it's not that," Roy said tightly. "It can't be that. Because I destroyed that too."

Maes couldn't even respond to that one. He stared back and forth between them. He knew that look in Roy's eyes, the guilt, the misery. It meant – it could only mean –

"Are you saying…you used your flame alchemy to…"

"I mutilated her," Roy answered bluntly.

"At my request," Riza augmented gently, firmly, as though this was something he needed to be reminded of occasionally. "After what happened in Ishbal, I didn't want even this record of my father's research to be preserved. Roy burned off enough of the array to make it unworkable."

"So you see, Maes," Roy informed him with a dark frown, "even that last shred of information is gone. Flame alchemy will die with me."

"But someone might have seen it, Roy," the woman insisted. "We didn't get rid of this until after Ishbal. Who knows who might have caught a glimpse of it there? When I was in the shower or changing clothes or – "

"Some peeping Tom, you mean? Do you really think someone would have had the presence of mind, in that awful place and under those circumstances, to copy down that array? They'd have had to catch you with your shirt off several times, to get it all. Surely someone would have noticed someone hanging around after a while. But I don't think it was that. It couldn't have been. It's not your fault, Riza."

"You can't know that."

Maes had no choice but to add his voice to the argument. "Roy, the problem is…Riza may be right."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Roy scowled.

"Let me show you something." Maes shoved aside his and Roy's cups, and motioned Riza to push the tray to the other end of the coffee table. As she did so, he pulled a clump of paper out of an inner pocket, and unfolded it to spread it out on the table, revealing a map of Central. As he flattened and straightened it, he pointed to several dots on the map that had been circled heavily in red. "These are all the buildings that have had fires since we got back from Ishbal this last time. Do you see a pattern to them?"

Both Roy and Riza leaned forward, peering down, eyes traveling back and forth across the paper, trying to discover what he meant. But finally Riza shook her head. "I don't see it," she murmured. "The points are pretty scattered."

"Ah," Maes said smugly, "but that's if you don't follow them chronologically. Watch this. Here's the first one," he put his finger down, "and the next," another finger tap, "and so on, one after the other," he finished, setting his finger down six more times.

Roy's eyes narrowed. Maes expected him to speak first, but it was Riza who said, "It's a spiral."

"Exactly. Moving from the outskirts of the city and, oh, with the last three fires or so, getting much closer in." Maes pushed his glasses up. "Now. Let's follow the general trend of the spiral." He traced it again, from the first fire to today's, and then continued, following the trajectory that had been set. At last the finger came to rest on a spot where, if the spiral were to continue as it started, it would finally end.

He looked up at his audience. Roy sat so still, he might have been a statue. Riza raised shocked eyes.

"The colonel's house," she whispered.

"That's right. Roy's house." Maes leaned back against the couch back. "So here's my theory, and now that I know about the array on your back, Riza, the theory's even stronger. Someone saw what your father had put there, and managed during the war in Ishbal to copy pretty much the whole array. And ever since then, in secret, they've been learning how to do the actual alchemy. And then, six months ago, Roy went back to Ishbal, and this person recognized him and followed him back to Amestris. And now he's using Roy's own alchemy in Roy's own city, gradually closing in as he terrorizes Central. And the final goal, I suspect, is to target Roy himself."

A heavy silence fell in response to his words. Riza stared across the table at Roy, while Roy himself continued his survey, stoney-faced, of the pattern laid out on the map. He leaned his elbows on his knees, steepling his fingers under his chin as he gazed down at the paper. They saw his eyes move, following the spiral, around and around until they came to stop on the block where his own house stood.

"Sir…?" Riza ventured.

Slowly his eyes lifted to hers, then moved to Maes's face. And slowly he sat up straight, leaning against the couch back, this time spreading both arms along it. And unbelievably, he smiled.

"What an interesting development," he said, the casual drawl creeping into his voice.

Maes snorted, recognizing the tactic. He mirrored his friend's move, leaning back himself and crossing his right leg over his left knee. "Yes," he agreed cheerfully, "changes the whole view of things, doesn't it?"

"Of course we can't tell anybody," Roy added.

"Good god, no," Maes chuckled.

Riza put in thoughtfully, "Because if the perpetrator knew we had figured it out, he'd change the pattern."

"Exactly," Maes nodded.

This time it was Riza's turn to lean further over the map and study it at length. "Do you suppose," she mused, "that we could use the pattern in a predictive way? To guess the alchemist's next target?"

"That's what I'm hoping," Maes said. "So it sounds like you think my theory carries some weight?"

"It sounds all too plausible to me," Riza nodded.

"Not necessarily," Roy shook his head. "We still have no real proof that it's an alchemist, though our lack of proof of anything at all seems to point most strongly in that direction. But one thing we do _not_ have, Riza," he insisted, leaning forward again and fixing his eyes on her face until she had no choice but to return his gaze, "is the slightest shred of proof that anyone saw what was on your back." He held up a hand to forestall her when she began to protest. "No," he said firmly. "Listen to me. The _only_ thing we have is a coincidence: that the fires started after we returned from Ishbal."

Maes raised his eyebrows. "That's a pretty big coincidence, Roy," he put in.

"No, not really. There could have been someone right here in Central who was biding his time, and suddenly realized I could have been killed in Ishbal last time, and he'd lose his chance. So when I got back, he started…doing whatever he's doing. Or, you're right, it could have been someone who followed us back…and who isn't using alchemy, but has found some kind of chemical accelerant that gets consumed and leaves no trace after the fire is out. These are all workable theories, but you just don't know yet, Maes. And neither do you, Riza."

"But Roy – "

"Don't even think it." The man's voice lowered, taking on a reassuring tone. "Riza, come on. I know you as well as I know anyone. With all the care you've taken over the years, to make sure the secret on your back was completely secure, I _know_ you weren't careless enough that anyone could have seen it. Don't start second guessing yourself about this. Please."

The two of them shared a long, eloquent look. Maes took off his glasses and fiddled with them, as though he wasn't aware of the deep communication going on beneath the surface. They so rarely had a chance to express the real truths between them that he tried to give them whatever illusion of privacy he could.

At last, "Very well," Riza said. "I'll trust your opinion on that, and try not to put unreasonable expectations on myself." As though subconsciously affirming that resolution to herself, she began re-buttoning her uniform jacket.

"Now then," Roy said, turning his attention back to his friend. "Where do you suggest we go from here?"

Maes replaced his glasses. "I'm not sure yet," he answered. "But I like the idea of trying to anticipate this guy's next move."

"Or this woman's," Riza inserted, raising her eyebrows at him.

"You think?" Roy drawled, leaning back again, flashing his usual sidelong smile at his companions. "Some former companion coming back to haunt me? The ultimate revenge of the woman scorned?"

"In that case," Maes guffawed, "we could be looking at a multitude of suspects."

"You're hopeless," Riza shook her head. "Both of you."

"But really," Maes added, "whoever it is, we might just be able to cut him – or her – off at the pass, if we can be waiting the next time they try to set a fire."

"Right, then," Roy nodded. "Lieutenant, go over the map with Maes, and try to find a building, or buildings, that could be the next target. Then I assume, Maes, that you'll set some people watching?"

"On the QT, yes," Maes nodded. "Or at least I'll encourage the city police to increase patrols in those areas, asking them to be as inconspicuous as they can when they do. I can't do much more than that, because we don't know when the next strike will be. If we watch too intensely at first, we could lose credibility with the higher-ups too soon. But I'm still hoping we can get lucky."

"You just might. Meanwhile, while the two of you are doing that," Roy said, getting to his feet, "I'd better get out and see that the others are doing their usual duties. I'll need to give them a plausible story about why we've been conferring in here." He edged his way out from between the coffee table and the couch.

Riza, too, stood up. "One thing we must do immediately," she said briskly, "is set an extra guard on you, sir."

He stopped at the end of the coffee table and interrupted, "No. Absolutely not, lieutenant."

"Colonel, be reasonable. If you're a target – "

"If I'm a target, then the surest way to signal the attacker that we're on to him is to set a guard on me. And anyway," he smiled lazily, "we haven't reached the end of the spiral yet. If we can't catch the guy first, there are several more burning buildings between him and me. If Maes is right, I'm supposed to be the dessert at the end of the meal. So I'm in no danger just yet. So there'll be no extra guard. Understood, lieutenant?"

She paused, and then nodded reluctantly. "Very well, sir. But I'm going to monitor the situation in case anything changes."

"And then," Maes stood to support her, "you'll get a guard whether you agree or not. And that _does_ come from Investigations. Officially. Do _you_ understand, Roy?"

The man looked from one to the other, eyes narrowed, jaw set rebelliously. Finally he relaxed, smiling and shrugging. "All right, all right, you win. Tyrants, the both of you. Now. Can I finally get back to my real job, please?"

As he walked across the room to the door, Maes turned his attention back to Hawkeye as they shared a rueful smile. They both knew the drill, having worked with Roy for years.

"Okay," Maes said cheerfully, sitting down and pulling his coffee cup back toward him. "Now that that's over, let's have a look at this map and see what we can figure out."


	3. A refreshing interlude

"Daddy! You're home!"

Maes shut the front door behind him just in time to bend down and scoop up an armful of four-year-old as she hurtled in stockinged feet down the hall, brown pigtails bobbing. "Hel-_lo_ my angel of cuteness!" he cried, gathering the little girl against him. "Have you had a good morn – aaagh!" He made exaggerated strangling noises as his daughter closed her arms tightly around his neck, and she giggled. It was their regular noon-hour ritual, whenever he could manage to get home at lunchtime.

"I killeded daddy!" Elysia hollered over her shoulder toward the entrance of the kitchen toward which Maes now proceeded, carting his bouncing burden with him.

"Well, stop killing daddy and tell him the soup is getting cold," came another voice from inside the bright room at the end of the hall. Gracia appeared in the doorway, smiling as she wiped her hands on the apron around her waist.

Maes planted a big, very loud kiss on Elysia's plump cheek, making her giggle again. Then he shifted her toward his right hip as he leaned forward and curled his left hand behind Gracia's neck. Pulling her toward him, he kissed her much less noisily, but much more thoroughly, drawing back in time to enjoy the bright colour now suffusing his wife's face. He straightened his suddenly crooked glasses and grinned at her.

"Nice appetizer," he remarked, and she gave him a light punch on the shoulder.

"I'm sure you'd like to eat something much more substantial," she said, turning in the doorway.

"Not till Elysia's gone to bed," Maes quipped, and received another punch. Gracia's cheeks were positively red by now.

The booster seat was in its usual place, on the chair along the curve of the table between Maes's and Gracia's chairs. The man set his daughter into the seat, tying the sturdy cloth ribbons around her waist. "So, have my girls had a good day so far?" he asked.

"I coloured, daddy," Elysia announced proudly. "I coloured a kitty for Al!"

"Oooh, what a lucky guy," Maes crooned, finishing the ribbon-tying with a big bow. He kissed the girl's forehead before pushing her chair closer to the table. "Alphonse is going to love getting a picture of a kitty from you. A picture of his favourite pet from his favourite girl. He's going to be so happy he won't know what to do with himself."

Gracia grabbed a dish towel, shielding her hands as she took hold of both handles of the soup pot. She brought it from the stove to the table, setting it onto the warming pad in the centre. Already the aroma of tomato and basil rose from it, beginning to envelop the table. Pristine white plates had been set out for the three diners, with the soup bowls on top, so the woman picked up the ladle, preparing to spoon liquid into the bowls. But Maes motioned her to sit down, and moved around the table to push her chair in. Taking off his uniform jacket and draping it over the back of his own chair, he picked up the ladle himself.

"Me first, daddy," said Elysia.

He paused. "What do you say, sweetheart?"

The little girl favoured him with her sweetest smile. "Please?"

"All right. Here you go." Maes poured a little spoonful into a small bowl, and crinkled some crackers into the thick red liquid. "Now, you wait just a moment longer until I give some to mummy, and then I'll feed you some spoonfuls. It's a bit hot, so we need to be careful."

As he ladled a bowl of the soup for Gracia, she shook out her napkin and asked, "Is everything all right out there? I guess it's a good sign that you're home for lunch."

"Depends what you mean by 'all right'," he remarked. "It was an empty building, like all the others. So no casualties this time either, thank goodness." He spooned a big ladle of soup into his own bowl, and finally sat down. He added, "The problem is, it's just a matter of time. The arsonist seems to be trying to make sure nobody's in the buildings before he torches them, but…sooner or later, he's going to miss the fact that someone's there. And then it goes past property damage and into murder."

"Daddy! I'm hungry!" Elysia interrupted him, reaching for her spoon.

"Oh no, daddy is wasting time, isn't he?" Maes cried, deftly removing the spoon from her hand and dipping it into her bowl. "Just for that, I'd better make sure you get lots of spoonfuls before I eat anything. How's that?"

"You need to eat too," the girl told him earnestly, shaking her head.

He blew across the spoon to cool down the liquid, then stuck the end of his pinky into it, to test the heat. Finally judging it to be safe, he held it to Elysia's mouth. "Little sips," he warned, "until you feel like it's not too hot."

Gracia buttered a slice of the crusty roll she'd cut and put into a basket on the table. "Did you find any more clues this time?" she asked.

"More than zero?" Maes smiled ruefully. "Still zero, I'm afraid. My people are ready to tear their hair out." He knew he shouldn't really be breaching confidentiality and sharing information with her like this, but the way things were going right now, he felt like he needed to tell _somebody_, or he'd explode. And anyway, Gracia would keep it in confidence, knowing how important it was.

"So what happens now?" she asked, watching him across the table.

"I've got an idea or two, but nothing I can really talk about yet," he answered, chuckling wryly to himself at the strange lines he was suddenly drawing between confidential and non. But to reveal today's theory would be too much like betraying Roy's privacy, so he really didn't think he could tell Gracia about it just yet. Giving Elysia another spoonful of soup, he inquired, "How's that, sweetheart? Is it good?"

"It's nummy!" the girl pronounced. "Your turn to eat."

"Your wish is my command," he told her with an extravagant flourish of his hand, and quickly took a couple of sips from his own bowl.

"How's Roy taking this?" Gracia asked, almost as though she had guessed what he'd been thinking. "He was pretty upset before he took his leave."

"And he could easily get just as frazzled now that it's started up again," Maes sighed. This much, at least, he could talk about. "He'll hold it together for a while, I'm sure; it's what he does. Maybe we can finally solve this thing before it gets to him again."

"He does have a way of taking everything onto his own shoulders, doesn't he?"

"I think he would this time, no matter what. Since it's all about fire."

"He needs to learn that he doesn't actually own fire, and maybe he could let some things go."

Except this time, Maes reflected in sudden gloom, Roy thought he really _did_ own the fire. The idea that there could be a pseudo-Flame Alchemist out there plotting to use Roy's own skill against him wasn't just a matter of ownership – it was downright frightening.

Maes gave Elysia another couple of spoonfuls, beaming at her as she made "mmm mmm" noises. Her eyes smiled back at him as she eagerly took the soup and swallowed.

"Maes," Gracia said, "you look tired. You've been up for so long, is there any chance you could grab a nap before you have to get back?"

"I wish," he sighed. "I've got to get to police headquarters and have a chat with them as soon as I've had lunch. Maybe I can turn in early instead."

"I wish this wasn't happening. These days are always so exhausting for you."

"At least it hasn't happened for a while. And even if these fires are keep going, the guy tends to wait a week or two between. So I can start catching up on sleep tomorrow." Maes grinned suddenly. "Or I should say, the guy or the _woman_ waits a week or two. Lieutenant Hawkeye suggested we shouldn't just assume it's a man. And then Roy went off about all those women he's dated in the past, wanting revenge because he stopped dating them, or something like that. I tell you – if we were looking for someone like _that_, the whole city would be on fire. What a guy. Leaving a trail of heartbreak behind him."

Gracia's hand stopped halfway to her mouth, drips of red liquid falling slowly from her spoon into her bowl. "Why on earth," she asked, "would you be looking for someone wanting revenge on Roy?" She set the spoon back down, eyes widening in alarm. "Is that what's going on, Maes? Someone is doing this to go after Roy?"

Damn. What an idiot he was. He wiped a smear of soup from Elysia's cheek, and sighed. "I shouldn't have said that. Don't mention it to anybody, okay? We don't know if Roy has anything directly to do with this, but that's one of the theories. There are other theories too, so we can't say anything for sure yet. I wasn't going to bring it up until I had something more concrete, but…" he smiled wanly across the table, "…me and my big mouth, as usual."

"Never mind, dear, I won't say anything. I just hope that theory's wrong. Because it makes this whole business even worse, somehow."

"You've got that right."

They continued eating in silence for a while, broken only by Elysia's occasional interjections. Once Maes was sure the soup was cool enough, he let his daughter finish spooning it out for herself, even if it meant a lot more smears on her face and some dribbles on the napkin he'd tucked under her chin. He looked down at his own white shirt, and finally smiled apologetically across the table.

"Sorry, Gracia, I should have taken my clothes off completely before I started eating something red," he grinned, wiping in futility at the soup dots that had somehow gotten splattered down his front. "Of course," he added with a leer, "I might not have gotten around to the soup at all if I did that."

Gracia merely rolled her eyes at him, laughing as she bit into her bread.

After the soup, there was a very filling chicken salad. Already, her tummy filling up with food, Elysia was getting sleepy, her eyes starting to droop. Long before he was done the rest of his meal, Maes pushed his chair back, pulled his daughter from her chair, and took her upstairs to tuck her into bed for her afternoon nap.

He should have undone her pigtails first, but he knew from experience that it would pull too much if he tried to remove the elastics. Elysia didn't seem to be uncomfortable, sleeping on her side with one chubby cheek pressed into the pillow, a hand lying beside it, fingers curled. As he bent to kiss the fingers, he had to admit that it was awfully tempting, kneeling at her bedside, just to lay his head down on the pillow beside her and allow himself to drift off. But after he'd sat there on his knees there for a few moments, he heard the phone jangling downstairs, and sighed. Duty was about to summon him again, he was sure.

Gracia came to the bottom of the stairs as he descended. "Sorry, dear," she said, "it's the police chief."

He nodded, walking back into the kitchen and picking up the receiver where it laid on the counter. After a quick, terse conversation, he replaced it and turned back toward his wife, seated again at the table. She raised questioning eyebrows at him, and he sighed. "Gotta eat quickly," he said. "I need to get over there and compare notes. It's really weird," he added, slipping back into his own chair, "they've got their own odd case they're working on. Some body snatching from obscure graves at the edge of some of the cemeteries."

"How awful. I don't suppose there's any connection between their case and yours?"

Maes shook his head. "I really doubt it. They suspect some overzealous medical students at the school, and I think they're right. But their having to put extra patrols near all the cemeteries is going to put a crimp in what I was hoping to ask them for. But we'll work it out, I'm sure."

He gobbled as much of the rest of his salad as he could, as quickly as possible, and then stood up, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair.

"Dear, at least change that shirt," Gracia chided, standing as well and coming to join him.

"I don't have time," he shook his head, throwing the jacket on. "I'll stay buttoned up instead." He pulled his wife into his arms and held her for a long moment, a haven of stillness in the midst of the storms that were beginning to swirl around him. "Mmm, that feels good," he murmured. "I wish I could stay for the afternoon and…nap." Again he grinned into her face, his green eyes sparkling with mischief. "Or at least…spend time in bed doing _something_ or other."

Gracia laughed. "You'd better get going, or I may decide to make you late."

"I wish I could let you. But hold that thought – I'll be home as early as I possibly can."

Another quick kiss, and he was off again. He pulled the front door closed behind him and paused briefly on his front steps. Straightening his glasses, he took a deep breath and set out once again, to solve yet another mystery with Roy Mustang at its centre.


	4. An ongoing lack of evidence

Maes rapped lightly on the front door, pushing his glasses up as he surveyed the front yard and street, just getting busy as the morning got underway. Then, after a couple of moments without any answer, he pressed the doorbell. He heard it ringing loudly inside Roy's front hall, and at last an answer came.

"It's open, Maes!" the man's voice sounded hollow through the door. "Just come in – I'm kind of occupied!"

Maes turned the knob and found that the door was indeed unlocked. He'd have to speak sternly to his friend about that; couldn't have him leaving himself too vulnerable to some pyro wandering the streets with possible vengeance on his mind. Stepping into the front hall – and, incidentally, locking the door behind him – he allowed his eyes to adjust to the dimmer inside light and then walked further in. It was much warmer in here than in the cooler morning air outside.

As he passed the wide opening to the living room, he found Roy immediately, and stopped to watch him in astonishment. The man had dressed in loose slacks and a grey t-shirt, and sat cross-legged on the floor by the fireplace, eyes closed, hands resting on his knees. He took a long, deep breath, holding it for a moment before letting it out very slowly. And again he drew breath, holding it and letting it out gradually. His brows drew together and he took another breath, very differently, sighing as though the effect he'd been trying to create wasn't working. At last he opened his eyes to look at his friend.

"Good morning," Roy said. "Sorry I didn't come to greet you. I thought I might be done before you got here, but I wanted to finish this."

Maes folded his arms, leaning casually against the door jamb. "And what's 'this'?" he wondered.

"I've been doing some meditation since I got back from Xing. It's part of the regime my teacher there set for me."

"Teacher?" Maes repeated, raising his eyebrows. "And I thought you just went out there for a vacation, and maybe to make some family connections. I didn't know you were into this sort of thing."

"I haven't been. I'm still not, at least, not entirely." Roy straightened his legs before him and leaned back, holding himself up with his hands on the floor. He tilted his head back, contemplating the stippled ceiling. "I kind of ran into Ian Woon when I stopped in at a temple while I was doing the touristy thing."

The eyebrows shot higher. "_Ian_ Woon? Kind of an odd mix of names, isn't it?"

Roy's lips turned up. "Mr. Ian Woon, yes. Odd name for an odd sort of guy. Apparently his mother was a traveling student from Caledonia, who met his father while visiting the country and decided to stay. Woon looks like a Xingian, but has a distinctly Caledonian sense of humour, I can tell you. In fact, you and he would get along beautifully. That's probably why I got along with him myself: he reminded me of you, even if he looks nothing like you."

"So this Woon guy has a mixed heritage, like you do. And he suddenly became your teacher?"

"Well, we talked for a while, after he got curious why I look Xingian but everything else is pure Amestris. Once I told him about my mother, and we realized we shared that kind of racial mix, one thing led to another. He teaches meditation techniques, and I really needed to learn to relax, as you might remember."

"Oh, I remember," Maes chuckled. "You were so tight a couple of months ago, I was afraid to bump into you, in case you snapped like a wire and sent shrapnel all over the place."

Roy answered with a wry smile. "You wouldn't have had to worry. You know that I'd never let the shrapnel hit you."

"That's true – you'd aim it at yourself. So this Ian Woon guy taught you to meditate, then."

"He taught me a few techniques," Roy nodded. "I couldn't stay long enough to get too deeply in, but he thought these might help, at least."

"And are they? Helping?" Maes wondered.

A pause as Roy frowned, still staring up at the ceiling. "Not as much as I'd like," he said at last.

"Small wonder, with this pyro business going on."

Roy's eyes flew to his face. "'Pyro business'?" he repeated.

"I've started using that as a kind of shorthand," Maes augmented. "Because that's what's going on, isn't it? Some pyromaniac who loves fire is out there terrorizing the city with it."

Roy got to his feet, pursing his lips. If his meditation had helped him relax in any way, Maes really couldn't see it. The man's shoulders seemed tight as he reached absently for one of the ignition gloves that sat on the small table beside the arm chair. Tugging it on, he shook his head and said tersely, "It doesn't have to be that at all. If I'm the target, as you think, it could just be someone trying to taunt me with my own little skill, before he gives me the _coup de grace_." He snapped his fingers, and as though to punctuate his point, a small fire leapt into being in the fireplace. He gazed into the flames, the array on the back of his glove still glowing as he shepherded the fire into life.

"Maybe you have a point," Maes shrugged. "Though there are so many easier ways he could target you." He pulled at his collar. "Roy, why are you lighting a fire? It's kind of warm in here already, don't you think?"

Roy's startled eyes darted to his face. "What? Oh…I suppose you're right. I was so preoccupied with what we were talking about that I wasn't thinking." He turned back toward the fireplace, the flames making his eyes glitter for a moment as he gazed into them. But then the array on his glove glowed once more, and as he made a flat smoothing motion with his hand, the flames snuffed out. He tossed the glove back onto the table as he moved toward the living room entrance. "I made a pot of coffee a few minutes ago. Want some?"

"Sure, thanks." Maes followed his friend down the hall and into the kitchen, where he pulled a chair away from the table and sat down. "So what's up, Roy?" he wondered. "Why did you want me to drop in here?"

Roy pulled a couple of mugs from the cupboard and poured the dark, steaming liquid into them from a pot warming over a low flame on one of the stove burners. "I thought it would be better to chat about your investigation at home before I went in to the office. It'll be easier if we don't have to keep being so secretive around my people. Nothing gets their curiosity going more quickly than when we're obviously trying to keep something quiet."

"And this way," Maes put in, eyebrows raised, "Lieutenant Hawkeye gets bypassed too. Right, Roy?"

Roy set the mugs on the table and sat down. He scowled into his own drink and replied, "Look, Maes, I want to keep her out of this as much as I can. She'll only beat herself up about that array on her back, when she's done absolutely nothing wrong. So when we're just engaging in speculation, I don't want to aggravate her feelings like that. There's no point, and it will just hurt her."

"Well, you know you can't hide things from her very easily. You'll just get yelled at if you try. But it's your ear drums, so never mind," Maes shrugged. "And anyway, there's really nothing to 'keep secret' to begin with."

"So you've found nothing thus far?"

Maes cradled the mug in his hands. "Nothing more, in the last two weeks."

"Have the police been patrolling near the potential new targets, as you planned?"

"As many as they can spare. They've got their own big investigation going on, so they don't have as many free people as I'd hoped."

"Ah yes." Roy leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out under the table, a lazy smile on his lips. "That weird body snatching thing."

"Isn't it stupid?" Maes shook his head. "I'm as convinced as they are that it's some kind of prank thing by medical students. But they just can't catch them. And there's no big public uproar because it's always the grave of some obscure person with no family, or a vagrant, or someone like that. I hate that anyone would treat people with such disrespect, just because they've been alone in the world. It's just not fair. If I could get my hands on those students…" Maes took a sip of coffee. "Nothing we can do about that, unfortunately. But it means the police get stuck expending all their resources on this, and have no reserves for other investigations."

"So there's nothing at all on our own case yet? That's disturbing." Roy shifted forward in his chair again, the lazy moment gone. "Damn. I wish we could get a break. Something, anything. I hate the thought…"

"…that there's someone out there, plotting which building to destroy next," Maes finished for him. "I know. And of course…it's been two weeks since the last time. Which means…"

The fall of Roy's hair obscured his eyes as he bent again over his cup, both hands clutching it. "I know," he whispered. "It's getting more likely by the day…that it's going to happen again. Maes…it can't. This can't just keep happening. Eight buildings so far…there just can't be more…" He took a long, slow breath, as though attempting again to use the relaxing techniques he'd been trying when his friend had arrived.

"Roy," Maes murmured. "Don't take it on yourself this way. The guy's crazy. It's not your fault."

"How can you know? You've as good as told me already that you think it is."

"Is that what you think? That you're 'to blame' somehow? Roy, you know better than that. The fact that some guy has gotten fixated on you and started using you as an excuse to burn buildings down…that's a problem with his own warped mind."

"And if I'm somehow responsible for warping his mind in the first place?" Roy demanded sharply, shoving his chair back and starting to pace beside the table in his agitation. "If this stems from what I did in Ishbal – "

"You said you didn't think there was any proof of that," Maes reminded him.

"Yes, well, I know we'd like to believe that – I know I would, at least – but of course you're probably right. You always are."

"Even about someone seeing that array on Riza's back?"

Roy stopped by his chair, staring down, eyes hard. "No. That part is impossible. Riza would never have let that happen. You know that as well as I do, Maes. She is no part of this, except as a bystander. I won't let you assign her any part of the blame for this when you and I both know it's my fault alone. Got that?"

Maes's eyebrows shot up as he regarded his friend, so taut with tension, glaring down at him. "Gee, Roy," he remarked, "you really _are_ upset about this, aren't you? Will you just keep your shirt on and sit down? I'm not 'blaming' anybody – certainly not Riza, and especially not you. So calm down and drink your coffee. It's going to get cold, with you pacing past it and creating such a breeze."

For a moment longer, Roy continued glaring, but eventually his shoulders slumped and he allowed a faint smile to cross his face. "Like I said, Maes…you're always right about things." Instead of sitting down, though, he walked over to the window looking out on his back yard, and contemplated the sunlight creeping across the lawn. "I just wish this was over," he muttered. "I hoped my vacation in Xing would help me calm down and deal with things better, but…well, all it took was that new fire two weeks ago, and I'm almost back where I started."

"I wish I could help somehow," Maes said.

Roy turned and looked at him. "You do help. In all the important ways. Thanks for coming this morning."

"You just need to ask, Roy, and I'll always come. No matter what. Now sit down and we'll talk about something else for a while." Maes grinned wickedly. "I have some new pictures of Elysia…"

"Elysia versus a firebug," Roy drawled, returning to the table. "What a choice. Maybe I'll just get ready to go to the office instead."

"You know you love it," Maes taunted, and was heartened to hear Roy's delighted laughter.

In the end, he didn't have to resort to the most recent photographs of his perfectly adorable little angelic snuggle bunny. He managed to divert conversation away from the pyro business and into less fraught channels, talking about Roy's people, and Ed and Al. (For example, he'd seen Havoc with a new date at a restaurant he'd taken Gracia to a couple of evenings ago, and wondered if Roy knew. That might provide an outlet for a bit of entertainment, though he suspected Havoc himself might have a different opinion. Actually…maybe he'd talk about Ed instead. Or no, since Ed was concerned with the investigation, maybe Breda…)

Maes knew he served as a kind of "release valve" for his friend, but he never minded, and he certainly never felt used. If he didn't know Roy was worth every moment he spent doing this, it might have been different. But they went back a long way, and he knew the true nature of Roy's soul and heart, and there wasn't much he wouldn't do to try to ease his troubled friend's path in life. And he also knew that Roy never took him for granted, and would always find ways of returning the favour somehow.

Once his friend had spiffed himself up for the office, the two of them strolled to headquarters together, enjoying the morning air as the warmth of the sun finally made its influence felt. As they drew closer to the building, they naturally began to encounter other military personnel, offering casual greetings as they passed. And once, unusually, they walked by a general who wasn't having a car drive him around. Maes and Roy saluted, and nodded to the entourage following behind the man.

They glanced over their shoulders to watch the general walk into a shop followed by two of his people, while four others stationed themselves grimly outside the door as though to prevent an assassination attempt. The shop, it turned out, was a lingerie store.

The two men's eyes met. And Roy grabbed Maes and pulled him between two buildings just in time, as they collapsed into gales of laughter, leaning on each other's shoulders.

"That was Borden!" Maes gasped. "Have you heard about him?" Roy shook his head, still chortling. Maes elaborated, "You think you've got a reputation as a ladies' man, Roy – that guy could give you lessons and you'd weep at how amateur you are. And I guarantee – that lingerie he's buying is not for his wife. He's gotta have a mistress in pretty much every major city in Amestris."

Roy leaned against the plain brick wall of the building behind him and wiped his eyes. "I see," he said. "It seems I've got some catching up to do, then."

By the time they finally reached the main military headquarters and climbed the steps to the front doors, Roy's earlier tension seemed to have vanished. The two men paused just inside the door, preparing to go their separate ways for the day.

"Thanks for the good start to the day, Maes," Roy said quietly, smiling.

"You're welcome. I think we should do this more often."

"We should. Nothing fun ever happens to me when I walk to work by myself."

"It's a plan, then. But I guess I'd better get to work now. Have a good day, Roy."

They split up, walking in opposite directions along the front hall of the building. But almost immediately, as Maes was congratulating himself about how relaxed Roy finally seemed, a voice interrupted his reverie.

"Hughes! Hey, wait up!"

He backed up a couple of steps, glancing down a side corridor to spot Edward trotting toward him with Alphonse clanking behind.

"Hey, Ed. Hi, Al. What's up?"

The young man skidded to a stop at Maes's side. "I just wanted to know if you've found anything new at that last burned-out warehouse."

"Now, Ed, you know I can't reveal de – "

"Details of an ongoing investigation, yeah yeah." Ed waved a gloved hand dismissively. "But I'm with Mustang, so I've got as much right to know details as he does. So what have you got?"

"'With Mustang', are you?" Maes chuckled. "So Roy has authorized you to make inquiries?"

Ed paused, a slight flush staining his cheeks. "All right, look, it's just important that you keep m – keep people informed, because I've been poking around there myself – "

"Aw, c'mon, Ed, you know you're not supposed to interfere with a crime site like that," Maes complained. "But what am I thinking?" He rolled his eyes. "I'm talking to Edward Elric. Of course you're going to interfere."

"Will you get serious for a minute?" Ed blurted. "I'm just saying that Al and I did some analysis of materials in a few spots, and we haven't found a trace of any kind of fuel or fire starter. So unless you've already found something and taken it out of the building so we missed it, there's no way that fire was started by anyone but an alchemist. Which is why I want to know what you've found."

Maes studied his face, all levity vanished. "You two can do that? Analyze the materials left behind?"

Al put in, "Up to a point, we can. We can start some preliminary transmutations and cancel them before they get going. If we're trying to do a transmutation that requires certain materials, and those materials aren't there, then the reaction won't even get started."

"So you've tried reactions requiring some flammable materials, and they haven't been there. Pretty impressive. Can I ask you a favour, then?"

Al nodded. "What do you need, Lieutenant Colonel?"

"Will you make a list of the materials you were looking for, and bring it to me? It'll really help."

"We'll do that right away."

"I appreciate it. And thanks for letting me know." Hughes hunched a little and lowered his voice. "I hope that you're at least managing to avoid being seen when you go to these buildings."

"Of course," Ed snorted. "Nobody ever knows we're there."

"Good. Then we'll keep that our little secret. And now I really have to get to the office to see if there are any new developments."

The brothers left, heading toward the front door. And only then did Maes notice Roy, standing farther down the hall, standing alone and watching the little conference from a distance. Even from this far away, Maes could see the tension in his body, and the set of his jaw. What the hell was wrong with him?

Tentatively, Maes lifted a hand and waved. Whereupon Roy turned on his heel and strode away down the hall without acknowledgement.

"What a grouch," Maes shrugged.

There was no new information awaiting him at the Investigations office. He found copies of the police reports of the last two nights' patrols near three of the warehouses he'd guessed might be candidates for the next target to go up in flames. But these reports, as they had done every night for the last two weeks, contained nothing of importance.

At mid-morning, Alphonse delivered quite a long list of possible incendiary materials that he and Ed had ruled out at the most recent fire site. As Maes ran his eyes down the list, his heart sank. They had covered all the usual sorts of fuel and triggers, as well as the lesser known ones his own people were already testing for, and even some that his own chemists had never heard of. It was a very thorough list.

And it also gave further credence to what Ed had claimed: that the fires were either being started by some substance or method nobody had discovered yet, or…or that their criminal was an alchemist.

Roy was going to hate this.

So when, two nights later, Maes again heard the phone shrilling in the middle of the night and realized what the call meant, his first thought was for Roy, and what this was going to do to him.


	5. A dramatic turn of events

Maes ran sideways along the street, with one arm waving along the water pump truck as it followed behind him, and with the other arm trying to sweep people out of the way as quickly as possible. "Move aside now! Hurry!" he called. "We've got more water!"

Not that it was enough, when they had to wait so long between arrivals. The fire was so big – the building was huge, and full of flammable materials – that it seemed that all the water wagons in Central weren't enough to deal with this one. Everyone was scrambling to get water here in whatever way they could. Even before he'd arrived, people from nearby neighbourhoods had already arranged bucket brigades from the river three blocks away, but that barely kept the outside of the building from going up.

And the biggest worry was that the barrels and bottles of alcohol being stored inside were barely reachable by any method. The large fires in the front offices of the warehouse, Maes presumed, were feeding on paperwork and the frame of the building itself. If those stores of alcohol blew, especially if they all went at once, everyone in the vicinity would probably die.

The crowd manning the bucket brigade parted long enough for the water wagon to get through. Maes waved the brigade further along the wall as the people on the outside of the wagon leaped down and yanked the hoses free. Then he saw another wagon coming, well back along the street behind the first one, and set off to shepherd it close to the building as well.

He heard a sharp clap nearby, and swiveled his head in time to see Ed kneeling across the street, his back to the burning warehouse. The white-blue glow of alchemy flowered into being, and a high stone wall erupted out of the ground to loom as a barricade between this street and the sidewalk and buildings on the other side. Just a few feet away, another glow began to shine, and Maes saw Alphonse also kneeling, pressing his hands into an array he'd drawn on the ground. Immediately another section of stone wall grew, stretching out to attach itself to his brother's wall.

The brothers leapt up and moved in Maes's direction.

"I'm so glad you're here, boys," Maes said fervently. "Good work."

Ed wiped the back of a hand across his forehead. "It won't contain all of the explosion," he panted, "but it will dampen it if it happens. We'll try to put the wall around the whole building, though one end is really close to another warehouse, so I don't know how well we'll do there."

"Whatever you can manage will help," Maes assured them.

"Where the hell is Mustang?" the young man demanded. "We wouldn't have to do this if he'd just get here."

"I don't know," Maes replied grimly. "I tried to call him twice. He didn't answer. I've sent Hawkeye to see what's up."

Ed grimaced. "She should try the brothels," he sneered, then moved on to the next part of the street.

As Maes returned to his own task, guiding the second water wagon close to the building, he admitted that he couldn't blame Ed for his disgust. If they'd ever needed Roy to help with these burning buildings, they needed him now most of all. Everyone kept asking him where the Flame Alchemist was, and he just didn't _know_. It wasn't fair to expect Roy to be home every single night, waiting by the phone in case he was called. But to have him missing in action on this of all occasions –

Maes told himself firmly to stop thinking about it. If Roy got here, he got here, even if it was only to deal with the aftermath of a devastating explosion. It wasn't like that would be a new experience for him. Meanwhile, the rest of them had an urgent and dangerous job to do, and couldn't waste time wondering what was keeping him.

Maes dashed down to meet the water wagon, and once more began his sideways skittering down the street, guiding the way toward the building. Off to the side, Ed and Al were kneeling again, raising another section of the protective wall. Maes hollered to the people in line in the bucket brigade, making them move aside yet again, and the wagon halted by the warehouse, alongside its companion, hoses already pulled free. He checked the stream coming from the other wagon and saw that it was still strong, water pouring onto the wall above a wide window, where flames tried to climb out from inside, seeking fresh oxygen.

He saw several people farther back in the bucket line, holding pails that weren't moving quickly. "Split into two lines!" he cried. "There are enough buckets that you can spread out! Quickly!" When some of the people just stood there, staring blankly, already growing weary from their efforts, he bodily grabbed them and shifted them to the side. It only took a few seconds for them to understand what he was getting at, and soon the buckets began moving forward more quickly, in two lines.

Still not enough, though. He gazed up at the wall looming four storeys high, its foundations laid in stone but its frame made of wood. There were some brick sections along the two lower floors, but the mortar between bricks had begun to crack and turn to powder. Chunks of brick were starting to tilt, with individual bricks falling out here and there, exposing the underlying wood of the frame and walls. Farther up, the red paint on the upper walls was well on its way to peeling off in blistered black curls. Black smoke poured out of the upper windows, obscuring what would otherwise have been a cloudless sky full of stars.

Maes knew that bucket brigades had formed on all sides of the building, and water wagons still came in as quickly as possible from all directions, but despite all their efforts, the fire was growing. Indeed, as he paused for a few seconds after splitting the bucket line, bent with hands on his knees, he felt a rush of hot air as a new ball of fire burst through a window on the third floor. All around him people staggered backward, crying out in fear. And a large chunk of still-mortared bricks shook loose, crashing onto one of the water wagons, splitting it open. All its precious cargo – all the cool water from the river – began gushing out in literal waterfalls.

"_Buckets_!" Maes screamed. "Save as much as you can!" Immediately the people from the bucket brigade surged forward, almost falling over each other trying to catch the vital liquid.

Not the big explosion people were worried about, though, which was a small mercy, at least. The fire had probably found a file room or something, and had eagerly begun to consume the fresh fuel. The stacked rows upon rows of barrels and bottles in the huge central storage area of the warehouse still awaited their turn. The wood in the barrels getting hotter and hotter, the glass probably drawing nearer and nearer to melting point. Just a few of those going would trigger the rest. And then…

Maes straightened, his hand moving almost unconsciously to the spot on his uniform jacket under which his photos of Gracia and Elysia resided in a pocket.

They'd just have to prevent that. Somehow.

He whirled around and dashed along the street, past the bucket carriers, yelling at the two figures who knelt again near the end of the block, setting alchemy light glowing as they raised another portion of wall. "Ed! Al! We need you back here, quickly!"

"What's up, Hughes?" Ed asked, springing immediately to his feet.

"We've got whole sections of brick starting to fall. One just wrecked a water wagon, and if any others collapse, we'll have people killed. Any way you can make the bricks secure?"

Al answered quickly, "We should be able to do something. What do you think, brother? Turn them into one solid block?"

Ed shook his head. "Not unless we can keep them glued to the wood underneath. We could try to change the wood into something else…"

"I don't think there's time," Maes gasped, still trying to catch his breath. The smoke was making it very difficult. "Unless you can change the whole building frame, you're going to make things unstable."

"Then we'll turn the brick to powder, at least where there are people below," Ed decided. "The problem with that is…"

"Let me guess," Maes supplied gloomily, "it'll be easier for the oxygen to get to the fire when you take away that barrier."

Ed was already starting toward the trouble spot. "You should be an alchemist, Hughes," he managed to grin, before breaking into an all-out sprint.

Al clanked quickly after him. Again Maes paused, bursting into a fit of coughing. He yanked out a handkerchief to tie over his nose and mouth, and looked down the street, hoping to see another water wagon coming.

But instead, he saw Roy Mustang racing down the street toward him – at last – uniform jacket hanging heedlessly open, flapping as he ran.

The man lurched to a halt at Maes's side. "What's the situation?" he demanded, eyes searching the street over his friend's shoulder.

"Situation?" Maes blurted. "The _situation_ is that this thing is getting out of control and you're not here. Where the _hell_ have you been, Roy?"

"Sorry – I took a sleeping pill – I haven't been sleeping well the last few nights – I thought I heard the phone – "

"I tried to phone you twice, and couldn't get any answer! Did Hawkeye wake you up?"

"What? No. Did you send her to my place? We missed each other then." Roy's face darkened as he assessed what he saw. "Damn. I should have just stayed awake and forgot the pills. We'll talk later – I'd better try to make up for lost time."

"Right. Let's go."

The two men ran back toward the warehouse wall where the brick had fallen, in time to see the Elric brothers pressing their hands against the bricks to initiate an alchemic reaction. The glow swelled out in all directions, and suddenly the bricks seemed to shimmer and dissolve, cascading down the wall in a fall of white powder that resembled grayish salt. Some of the powder swirled around briefly, held aloft by the currents created by the movement of hot air from the building, but the brothers had made sure most of the powder was heavy enough to drop to the ground. Of course, almost immediately it began to mix with the water and turn to thick, sucking mud. But at least the bricks wouldn't be collapsing on top of anyone now.

Ed turned around, waving a hand in front of his face and coughing. Catching sight of the two men as they approached, he glared at Roy. "It's about time you got here, Mustang!" he growled. "Whose bed did they drag you out of?"

"Shutup, Fullmetal," Roy retorted automatically, his eyes searching the walls, judging what the situation was. He tugged at his ignition gloves to secure them. "Maes," he asked tersely, "what's this place like inside? Offices in the front here, and big empty space beyond, correct?"

"Nope, not this time," Maes shook his head. "This one's not empty. We've got a building full of barrels and bottles of alcohol right behind the offices."

"_What?_" Roy gasped, turning on him in disbelief. "Then this – it's – "

"It's a change in pattern. And a whole lot more dangerous than any of the others." Maes put a hand on his friend's shoulders. "Roy. Can you do this?"

He watched the man lift his face, even more pale than usual, to survey the building again, swallowing hard. "I'll do it," Roy said. "No matter what. But get everybody else out of here. Just in case."

He'd never made that sort of request at any of the other buildings. But this was obviously very different from those others. Maes nodded and turned toward the other people, still passing buckets and throwing the contents at the building. But Ed and Al had anticipated him, already hollering at everyone, "Back away! Get out of range!" In fact, Ed slapped his hands against the wall he and his brother had created, making an opening that the people closest to this part of the warehouse could get through quickly.

Maes yelled at a couple of nearby officers – he briefly recognized Lieutenant Havoc among them – to run around the other sides of the warehouse and get everyone else as far away as possible. By that time, all the nearby people had gone through the hole in the makeshift wall, and Al was closing it up. Ed told the two officers, "We're going to keep putting up as much wall around the building as we can. It won't be as strong because we'll be hurrying, but – "

"But it will still help," Maes nodded.

Roy spared a quick glance for the young alchemist. "Thank you, Ed," he murmured. "I'll try to keep it contained, but…"

"Yeah. I know. Good luck, Colonel." And the brothers raced off.

"All right, Maes. You go too, and I'll get started."

"I'm not going anywhere, Roy. And," Maes added, glancing down the street, "I think you're going to be stuck with Hawkeye too."

Roy spared the merest annoyed glance at the woman as she raced toward them. He lifted both of his gloved hands as she came to a halt beside the two men, an action that effectively prevented her from saying anything, in case she broke his concentration. Maes reflected wryly that he'd probably planned it that way, since Hawkeye would inevitably have started yelling at him if he hadn't.

They waited, breathlessly, as Roy's eyes scanned the walls above, taking in the blistering paint, the billows of black smoke, and the raging flames now hurling themselves out of every window despite all the efforts made to quell them. Maes could almost see the fury of his thoughts as, frowning, he tried to gauge where the most danger lay, and how he could guide the fires and snuff them out without causing a worse disaster. Back and forth went his eyes as he stood, body taut, the arrays on the backs of his gloves glowing slightly as he extended his senses as far into the blaze as he could.

So intense was his concentration that his face actually relaxed a little, as though his attention was so narrowly focused that even the effort needed to maintain a frown was too much of a diversion. The arrays continued glowing. And he remained standing there, head lifted, hands at shoulder level, poised for the fingers to snap.

And still he remained. Maes watched tensely. Waiting. The heat grew more intense now that there was no water flying around to cool things down. Whatever small effect the cool liquid from the river might have had in keeping the temperature lower, farther in toward the barrels and bottles, it had utterly vanished by now. Roy's gaze fixed on the flames in the long row of second floor windows, the narrow frames between them burned away so that there was nothing left but a solid, writhing band of red and yellow. He stared into the inferno as though enthralled, wide eyes reflecting back the twisting light like hot beads of black glass. His breathing swift and shallow, lips parted, he stood unmoving as the frenzied fire danced before him, thunderheads of black smoke rising to mix with the fires on the upper floors, the blaze roaring over their heads like ten thousand lions of hell.

It was getting harder and harder to breathe. Maes pressed an arm in front of his face, trying to filter the air, but he couldn't prevent a short coughing fit. How much longer did Roy need before he figured out what to do? Surely those barrels were about to go up!

He saw Hawkeye move closer, bright eyes glowing in the light of the flames, intently watching her colonel's sweat-beaded face. She frowned, lifting a tentative hand toward him, but hesitated as though she didn't dare interrupt his concentration. "Roy…?" she ventured. "What are you doing?"

Doing? Maes looked from one to the other in mystification. What did she mean? Wasn't it obvious what Roy was doing? He was concentrating. So fixedly, and so still and tense, that he looked like a statue.

"Roy," she spoke again, at last setting a hand on one of her superior officer's uplifted arms.

He gasped, eyes blinking as though she'd jerked him awake, hands lowering. He eyes darted to her worried face and back to the flames consuming the building. And his brows drew together as he moaned, horror breaking over his face and grinding from his throat, "No – dammit – no! I'm too late, _I'm too late_!"

"Roy!" Maes cried. "What the hell do you me – "

"_Stand back!_" Roy shouted, bracing his feet and lifting his hands again.

And suddenly, deep, deep inside the building, a loud rumbling started that grew louder and louder, making the very ground beneath their feet begin to shake. Then Maes knew with sick certainty that the wooden barrels had begun to burn through and give way, their contents quickly vaporizing in the heat, and igniting in the flames.

_Oh Gracia_, he thought, grief and regret stabbing through him.

With a deafening roar the explosion boomed, mountains of flame erupting as the ground heaved. Maes watched the huge cracks break through the walls and wanted, in that fleeting second, to close his eyes so the last image in his mind would be the faces of his wife and daughter, and not the tidal wave of death sweeping toward him.

But he couldn't tear his gaze away. And therefore saw the arrays on Roy's gloves burst into light as an answer to the explosion, brighter even than the oncoming wave of fire, the brilliance of alchemy exploding from him as though he held the very sun in his hands. He swept his arms up, hands cupped, and Maes's jaw dropped open as he watched the mountain of fire halt its rush outward, following the motion, rising, rising, rushing up toward the stars themselves.

The cracks in the walls seemed to heal almost as soon as they broke – Ed and Al, Maes realized, somewhere along the perimeter of the building, forcing it to hold, and forcing it again, and again. And the fire and smoke and all the force of the explosion swooped upward and continued rising, Roy lifting his hands once more, and yet again, gathering and controlling the raging elements, altering them as they rose, desperate to change them into something harmless. His feet wide and braced, sweat pouring down his face, he confronted the powers of the engulfing flame and sought to master them.

The battle seemed to go on forever. When one explosion began to dissipate, another would occur with renewed might, and Roy would have to redirect it upward again. Over and over he flung the fire at the heavens, spreading one arm wide to spread and dilute it until it burned out its fuel, using the other hand to try to alter the fuel itself into something that would stop the burning. Streaks of gold, red, and orange stretched across the night sky, following the motions of his glowing hands, obliterating the stars, casting a light brighter than daylight down over the city, throwing shadows sharp as knives.

Again his expression altered as he gazed into the fires of hell, sweeping the blaze across the sky. His eyes grew wide and rapt, his mouth, unbelievably, turning up into a smile – something otherworldly, almost tender, guiding the flames as though they were an extension of his own mind. He had merely to move his hand and they obeyed him, flinging themselves with wild abandon wherever he wished them to go.

Maes watched in paralyzed wonder, almost incapable of coherent thought, knowing only that his friend was an artist, painting the sky itself with light.

And slowly, oh so slowly, the explosions inside the building began to taper off. Whether all the barrels had finished bursting, or whether Roy himself had been able to reach far enough in to change the heated air in the storage area, the time came when nothing had blown up for several long moments. The roar of the flames began to subside as they dispersed through the air, leaving only a vague glow behind them as though the air molecules had somehow phosphoresced. The glow gradually turned from red and orange to silver, as the normal quiet of the street began to reassert itself, as strange and tangible as a shout.

Only a few small fires remained, more like embers, really, the last dying consumption of the frames of the building. The roof, of course, had collapsed or been destroyed, the upper floors consisting mostly of a few charred beams pointing at the sky. But all along the wall of the lower floor there was cracked stone where there had been brick, some of the stone as smooth as glass, as though it had begun to melt after Ed and Al had created it.

Maes hoped the boys were okay, after such a prodigious effort. And Roy…

Roy dropped like a puppet whose strings had been cut, collapsing to his knees in the mud, hands dangling at his sides. His face still uplifted, the silver sky glow made him a portrait in stark black and white. Streaks of silver ran down his face, whether tears or sweat, Maes couldn't tell.

He started toward his friend, but Riza was already there, kneeling in the mud beside Roy, flinging an arm around his shoulders.

"You're all right now," she murmured softly. "It's over."

As though her voice had broken a spell, Roy bent his head and buried his face in his hands. "What have I done?" he cried, voice breaking. "What have I done, what have I done?"

"What have you done?" Maes repeated, kneeling on the other side, tears of relief and shock beginning to stream down his face. "Roy – you saved everyone. You did it. You probably saved this whole neighbourhood. You – you were magnificent."

His friend lifted his head and peered into his face, as though he'd never seen him before. But at last he swallowed and took a deep breath, his voice sounding more normal as he spoke again. "I was almost too late, Maes. If I'd been even two minutes later – "

"But you weren't. You saved all of us. You did it." Maes threw his arms around his friend and drew him close. "Dammit, Roy, how did you get to be so wonderful?" He was trying to joke, but as he felt how badly Roy was shaking, he realized that he, too, was shaking almost as badly. "I think we need to find a medic and both get sedatives. And then sleep for a week."

"Once I know you're all right," Riza put in, her hand still resting on one of Roy's shoulders, "I'll call for a car to take us to the hospital. I'm not sure I can drive right now."

Roy breathed deeply again, once more exerting his will to pull himself together. Maes marveled at his control, but then again, he'd faced this sort of inferno before – had actually created it, more than once. It was probably easier for him to recover, experienced as he was. Whereas Maes felt like his bones had turned to rubber, and he thought he might actually be sick in a minute.

"I don't want a sedative," Roy muttered. "I want a drink. In fact, I want several of them."

Maes cast a pointed glance at the burned-out warehouse. "I have a feeling," he remarked, a hysterical laugh trying to build up in his throat, "that we've just witnessed a coming shortage of alcohol."

Roy put a hand across his eyes and began to laugh. Maes was glad to hear that he wasn't the only one on the verge of hysteria. "Oh Maes," Roy choked, laughter pitching his voice high, "you're right. What am I going to do now? Drink tea?" He was almost giggling.

Maes glanced across him and smiled at Riza, who managed a smile of weak relief in return. It didn't quite erase the worry in her eyes, though.

But Roy quickly took the laughter in hand so it didn't degenerate into hysteria. Already there were people beginning to return up the street, and for their sakes if for no other reason, the three officers needed to display some control and authority. But they didn't need to do it for long. Lieutenant Havoc took one look at his boss's face and ran back down the street to commandeer a car. He, at least, was capable of driving.

Maes tried to manage the adulation that began to swirl around Roy as more and more people returned. Everyone knew exactly who had done the unbelievable thing they had just witnessed, and it seemed everyone in this part of the city wanted to get a look at their lifesaving hero. Even Edward Elric, when he came pelting around the corner of the building, was positively jubilant.

"That was the most amazing thing I've ever seen!" he cried, not even bothering to adopt his usual casual disrespect. "Colonel, I never knew you could do stuff like that! That was fantastic!"

Roy smiled at him, a smile of rare comradeship that included Alphonse, who now came clanking up behind his brother. "You two did some amazing work yourselves. I don't think I had enough control to keep the blast from coming outward by myself. What does the other side of the building look like?"

"It held, Colonel," Al assured him. "There are some cracks, but we managed to get it to hold long enough."

"You certainly did. I could never have done this without you."

At last Havoc's car pulled up, and he flung open the doors. Maes climbed into the back seat with Roy, while Riza sat in front, half-turned to look back and watch. Roy's façade of calm control, adopted for the swarming crowd, began to crumble as soon as the car started moving. He bowed his head and began to tremble, and Maes drew his friend into his arms again.

In the end, they decided not to go to the hospital, but to take Roy home instead. And Maes had no intention of leaving him by himself, so once they arrived, he gave Gracia a quick call to let her know he'd be staying the night. Then he himself opened a bottle of scotch and poured some for himself, Roy, Hawkeye, and Havoc. Neither of them planned to leave either. So Maes left them downstairs to make their own sleeping arrangements with blankets, couch, and chairs, and he took Roy upstairs, a protective arm around the man's shoulders.

The scotch helped, or they might never have fallen asleep. But the drink, combined with exhaustion, was almost as good as the sedative they had foregone. Still, it wasn't until Maes drew Roy into his arms, holding the man's shaking body tightly, that Roy was able to calm down at last and sink into a desperately needed sleep.

Maes remained awake just a bit longer. He laid a hand on his friend's fine hair and murmured, "It's all right, buddy. I've got you. You're safe now."


	6. An unwelcome restriction

Roy seemed to have woken up fully recovered from the previous night's ordeal. In fact, Maes awakened to the sensation of a finger trailing down the side of his cheek, and a voice crooning, "Was it as good for you as it was for me?" He looked with bleary eyes over his shoulder to find Roy lying in the bed behind him, head propped up on one hand while the other teased at Maes's hair.

Maes sat bolt upright, pulling the sheets – it made him cringe to think of it later – yanking the sheets right up to his chin like he was some kind of violated maiden. Roy's laughter would have been humiliating if Maes hadn't just been so glad to hear his friend sounding more like himself again. The man's eyes were clear and bright, and a good night's rest had restored a bit of colour to his pale face. As Roy leaned back against his pillows, stretching his arms lazily above his head, Maes grinned at him, fumbling for his glasses on the nightstand and making some silly comment about how catlike his friend looked at that moment.

The two of them finally descended the stairs to find Hawkeye and Havoc just getting up. They continued folding the blankets they'd used overnight, but neither could resist casting Roy a questioning glance or two. He responded with That Smile – the sidelong smirk that portended potential mischief – and waltzed wordlessly into the kitchen as Maes raised his eyebrows at the other officers, shrugging.

Under Roy's direction, the four of them prepared bacon, sausages and eggs, waffles, toast, fruit and freshly squeezed orange juice, and coffee and tea. "We've put in our morning hours already," he drawled, "before we actually went to bed. I think we're owed a couple of extra hours to enjoy a good breakfast."

Maes and Havoc mainly set the table and made toast and the drinks, since Roy and Riza pretty much took over all the other preparations. At one point, Maes leaned against the counter, arms crossed, and watched the two working together, laughing. They way their paths wove in and out of each other so smoothly, each taking up a job without interfering with the other, yet each coordinating automatically with the other, you'd think they had lived together for years. Roy's fine dark hair remained tousled from bed, and Riza had released her own blond hair to tumble down her back. Maes thought he'd probably never seen the two of them so relaxed together.

Havoc glanced over, favouring him with a knowing wink, and Maes had to chuckle.

The aromas permeating the kitchen set Maes's stomach rumbling long before they sat down. And his first bite of waffle, with the rich sweet taste of maple syrup, made him feel like he'd died and entered paradise. In fact, the entire breakfast that followed, enjoying each other's company around the table for a couple of hours, went a long way toward easing the tension in his own muscles, and the memories of the night.

Early on, just before they sat down to eat, he'd called home to let Gracia know what he was up to, and to say good morning to Elysia. After he'd chatted for a couple of minutes, he came to the table where the others were already seated, and Roy remarked, casually pouring maple syrup over his own waffles, "You might as well bring out your pictures now, Maes, so we can peek at them while we're eating. You know you want to." And all of them seemed genuinely pleased to look at his collection of ten new photos, when he dug into the jacket he'd left hanging on a doorknob downstairs the night before.

Later on, the four of them leaned back in their chairs and talked, drinking their tea or coffee and letting the huge breakfast digest. In a few minutes, the three visitors would head home for quick showers before finally setting off to work, but first they took the opportunity just to enjoy each other's company. They didn't get this chance very often.

Of course they talked about what had happened at the warehouse last night;. But Roy quickly steered them away from that subject, reminding them that it would descend upon them soon enough, and that they didn't need to spoil a pleasant morning by returning to it just yet.

He took a sip from his cup and smiled at his companions through the steam curling up from it. "It just takes a night like last night," he said, "to remind you what's really important. I'm glad you're all here."

Which Maes fervently hoped was still true, two hours later, as he walked down the hallway at headquarters, the sounds of his boots and those of his four uniformed companions echoing on the marble floor. Because Roy was about to get a lot more of their company than he'd bargained for. And Maes didn't think he was going to like it.

Roy himself stood in the outer office, bending over Falman's desk, going over some files with Havoc and Falman. All the rest of his people were there too, involved in various activities at their own desks. Even Edward and Alphonse were in attendance for some reason, Ed sitting on a corner of Havoc's desk, heels casually bumping on one of the legs, and Al chatting quietly with Fuery.

Good, Maes thought. This would save his having to go through the whole spiel more than once. And even though Ed and Al hadn't exactly been included in the list of people who should know about this, they were as intimately involved in this as anyone – in fact, more involved than some of Roy's people. Maes stepped further into the office, two of his men following after him, closing the door and stationing themselves to either side of it. The other two remained outside to prevent anyone else from coming in until Maes had finished delivering his news.

"Hey, Hughes," Ed said from his perch on the desk, eyes gleaming with mischief, "all recovered from your babysitting last night?"

Apparently the brief détente of respect achieved the previous evening between Roy and Ed had given way to their more usual sharp bantering. Maes saw Hawkeye cast a stern glance in the kid's direction, as Roy straightened up. He looked at his friend, eyebrow raised in question, but merely drawled with a lazy smile, "How nice of you to visit. Havoc, Falman," he added, "we'll get back to this in a few minutes. Hughes, you can come into my office."

He'd hardly taken two steps toward his door office before Maes replied, "No, I think I need to talk to you out here with the others."

Roy stopped and half-turned, looking back over his shoulder. The smile had vanished. "We'll talk in my office," he repeated, "Lieutenant Colonel."

Ah yes, how like him, to try to pull rank to get his way. Maes hated to do this when Ed was here, looking more interested by the minute, but he made himself shake his head. "Sorry, Colonel," he said, acknowledging his friend's superior rank but dismissing it at the same time. He pulled some folded papers out of his jacket pocket. "I've got orders here from General Hakuro, and I'm to convey them to you and all your staff. Though of course," he added with a smirk, "the seating in your office _is_ more comfortable, so maybe you'd like us all to go in there after all – "

"All right, Hughes, you can stop babbling." Roy bit off the terse words. "Just say what you have to say and get it over with."

Nope, Maes thought glumly. Roy was not going to make this easy. But Maes decided to keep the pleasantness of breakfast in the forefront of his mind no matter how unpleasant things got from here on in. "You know about the one change in pattern from last night's fire," he began.

"Yes," Roy snapped. "The warehouse wasn't empty this time."

"Not only not empty, but full of dangerous, flammable goods," Maes nodded. "If that thing had blown, then for the first time there would have been loss of life. Considerable loss."

"And?"

"And it means this guy's intentions have changed. He might even know we're onto his previous pattern. Either that, or he's accelerating the program. And the extra dangerous element of last night is just one hint of that."

That did it. He now had Roy's full attention. The man had turned to face him directly, a dark frown pulling his brows down. "What do you mean? There are other indications?"

"'Fraid so," Maes answered softly. He pulled out the map of a couple of weeks ago, and spread it out on Hawkeye's desk as all the others left their chairs and gathered around it. Ed pushed in front of Havoc, while Al loomed behind him to look over his shoulder. Roy stepped up beside Maes, muttering under his breath, "There'd better be a good reason for this public display, I warn you."

"There is," Maes whispered, then spoke aloud. "We've established that the first eight burned buildings are arranged in a spiral that's gradually working its way toward Colonel Mustang's house." In fact, in preparation for this meeting, he'd drawn the spiral on the map.

"I didn't know that!" Fuery exclaimed. "So you're telling us the Colonel is one of this guy's targets?"

"I think," Maes responded, "that he's pretty much the only target, and that all of these buildings are kind of collateral damage. Once I saw the spiral, I had people watching a few buildings in this area," he set down a finger, "in case we could catch the guy next time he tried to set something on fire."

"Well, that missed the mark, but good," Breda put in. "The building from last night is two blocks away from there."

"Yes it is," Maes nodded, pulling out a pen. "And look what's happened to the spiral." He connected last night's inferno with the previous building, and looked around.

Hawkeye murmured, "It's gotten smaller. It's tightened."

"Exactly," Maes nodded. "And it's much, much closer to Roy's house than it would have been if it had kept to the original pattern."

"Uh oh," Ed said. "You better look out, Colonel, whoever this is, he's coming to get…you…" The young man's voice trailed away as he looked up at his superior officer's face.

Roy had crossed his arms and stared, stiff and silent, at the map. It was as though he were frozen. His dark, wide eyes remained momentarily transfixed on the end of the spiral, but Maes saw them move, finally, to the block where his own house stood.

"Roy," Maes said quietly, "you see what's happening, don't you?"

A long pause. Until Roy murmured, his voice hoarse, "Maes. Don't do this."

"We've got no choice. You have to know that."

"No. Not yet. Don't – "

"Do what?" Fuery demanded. "Lieutenant Colonel Hughes, what's going on here? Is Colonel Mustang in real danger?"

"Yes," Maes answered flatly. "And now that the pattern has changed, we don't know how soon this guy is going to go after him. Which is why," he set the other papers down on top of the map, "General Hakuro has ordered that a guard of at least two people accompany the Colonel wherever he goes, and a further guard of several people be placed around his house day and night, until we finally catch the person who's after him."

"Thank goodness," Fuery said. "Now that we know he's a target of some maniac, of course we have to protect him – "

"Dammit, it's _not necessary!_" Roy hissed, slamming his hands flat on the map. "There's still time – "

"We don't know that," Maes shook his head. "Not now that the pattern has changed. From here on, it's a wild guess what the guy will do next. We're not risking you, no matter what you say."

"Boss," Havoc put in, "Hughes has a point, don't you think? After what we saw last night, I have to agree. We can't let you remain at risk."

"But that's exactly what you should be doing," Roy insisted. "He didn't know we were on to him before this. He might have suspected, but he didn't know. But once you put a guard on me, he'll know for sure. And then – _then_ he really will be a wild card, and who knows what he'll do at that point? But if we carry on as before, we still have a chance to catch him without endangering anyone else."

"Like nobody was endangered by that building last night?" Maes shot back.

"He might not have known it wasn't empty. But if things around me change so obviously, that won't be a mistake. That will be a signal to him. Maybe even a challenge. This is a terrible idea, and I absolutely won't accept it. So take your papers and your guards out of here and – "

Again Maes interrupted. "You don't get a choice on this one, Mustang. Sorry."

The look Roy fixed on him would probably have completely eviscerated him if it had had actual tangible form. Maes was used to seeing his friend shoot that deadly, tight-jawed, narrow-eyed expression at other people, on the battlefield for example, but he'd never been its target himself. He quelled the instinctive terror that burst through him with a hot rush of adrenaline, and forced himself to meet Roy's eyes without blinking. He thought he'd probably never done anything more difficult in his life.

"Hughes." Roy spoke softly, voice taut with tension and threat. "My office. Now."

The group around him parted as he turned and strode toward the door to the inner office. Even Ed stayed remarkably silent, instead watching the Colonel with an uneasy frown, biting his lip. Maes walked slowly after Roy, casting Havoc a wry shrug as he passed.

As he stepped into the office, closing the door behind him and leaning back against it, he wondered if Roy was so angry at him that their friendship might be over. The expression on his face had been that venomous.

But Roy walked around the couches to the window beside his desk and halted, leaning his hands heavily on the sill. And when he spoke, there was an entirely different tone in his voice.

"Maes," he said quietly, a trembling plea in his voice that hadn't been there before. "Don't do this to me. Please."

Maes's knees wanted to give out until he sagged down the door behind him and onto the floor, but he kept himself upright, a hand behind his back hanging onto the doorknob as though it were a lifeline. It didn't sound, at least, like Roy was about to tell him he never wanted to see him again. Or burn him to a crisp.

"Roy," he answered, equally quietly, "I don't understand what it is you think I'm 'doing' to you. Is it wrong for me to want to protect you from some crazy guy out there, who seems to have similar skills to what you have, and who is probably gunning for you?"

Roy sighed. "No, I suppose it's not 'wrong', exactly. But Maes…don't you believe I can take care of myself?"

"Yes, but…"

Finally his friend turned to face him, coming back around his desk and sitting on the edge of it. He didn't wear the venomous expression any more, but the tension and anger were still there. He crossed his arms, raised an eyebrow, and prompted, "But…?"

"Look, Roy, of course you can take care of yourself. Against any other person. But this guy is like – like another you, or something. And frankly, I don't know of _anybody_ who could properly defend themselves against you. So, this time…," Maes braced himself, "this time, no, I don't think you can take care of yourself."

"And what the hell," Roy asked tautly, "do you think a bunch of guards with no alchemy skills at all could do to protect me, when you don't even think my own skills would be adequate? Do you enjoy putting essentially unarmed people under a death sentence like this?"

"But they're not unarmed," Maes answered softly. "They have the one thing that actually _would_ work against even you, if they're at just enough distance. They have guns. And every one of the people I plan to have guarding you is a far better shot than you are. Even if you're attacked, the one hope is that at least one of them lives long enough to get that shot, and take the guy down. And that," he added, crossing his own arms as a mirror to his friend's, "is why you're not going to change my mind this time, and you _are_ going to have a guard. Everywhere you go, day and night."

Roy's shoulders slumped as he bowed his head, covering his face with one hand. "Dammit, Maes," he whispered. "You're chaining me. You're locking me in a prison. And worse."

"I'll try to make this as unobtrusive as possible. Except that you'll have to have someone inside the house with you overnight. Sorry about that. But if it's Riza or Jean, it won't be as bad as you think, surely? Remember this morning. That wasn't so bad, was it?" Maes wheedled, hoping maybe to lighten the gloom just a little.

It didn't work. "It isn't that," Roy murmured. "I…I can't explain. You…you just have no idea what you're really doing to me. You couldn't possibly understand…"

"I'm sorry. I wish things didn't have to be this way. I just don't know what else to do to help you while all this is happening, Roy." Maes fought around the sudden lump in his throat. "And I…I just couldn't stand to lose you, without at least fighting to save you. Can you understand that?"

A long silence, until Roy sighed again. "Of course I understand. I'm sure I'd do exactly the same if our positions were reversed." The frightening tremble had returned to his voice. "I'm sorry you have to deal with this. I'm sorry any of you do. If there was any way I could stop it…I swear I…"

"It's all right, buddy," Maes murmured. "Nobody blames you for any of this. And all we want is to get this guy, and keep you safe, and have it be over and done. The sooner you can get back to your normal way of doing things, the better." He paused, then decided perhaps they'd had enough heart-to-heart. Roy was depressed and upset enough already. The last thing he needed was to have things get too maudlin. What a shame, after the great start they'd all had this morning. Maes had been so hopeful…

Maybe if they could just begin the new routine and have it become commonplace, it would ease Roy's mind a little. And it wouldn't last forever, after all.

Maes pushed off against the door and half-turned to take hold of the knob. "I'll go get Riza, and have her come in to stay with you right now. I'm sure you'd prefer that your own people are the ones who are closest to you, so I'll station my own people at more of a distance. And I'll work out a schedule with the others before I leave. Okay, Roy?"

For a long moment he received no answer, then at last Roy lifted his head with a reluctant nod. He even tried to smile, as though attempting to reassure his friend that they were still okay, and he'd try to accept the way things had to be.

But all Maes could think of, all he could see as he left the room, sent Hawkeye inside in his place, and began to plan the schedule in the outer room with the others, was the look in Roy's eyes even as he'd tried to smile.

That look was stark _fear_. And it shook Maes's soul to the very core.


	7. A tantalizing possibility

Maes dropped in again, the day after the new arrangements had been put into place, partly to see how all the parties had survived through the day and overnight, and partly to try to take the brunt of things if Roy was in a foul mood. Havoc and Breda had stayed inside the house during the night, spelling each other off in two-hour watches while four other military guards had stood outside. The two lieutenants didn't seem too bad for wear as Maes peeked in the door, and there didn't seem to be any upheavals going on.

When he tiptoed dramatically over to the other door and opened it, he saw that Hawkeye was, again, doing her work in the inner office, her files spread all over the coffee table, her gun lying at the ready on a pile of papers. She'd be leaving after lunch to try to catch some sleep, before serving her turn with Breda in the house tonight.

Roy seemed to have accepted the inevitable, and even managed a joke or two – something about how much real work he had to do while Hawkeye was actually sitting in the office with him – but there had been a warning in his eyes dissuading Maes from talking much about the situation. Not the fear that had been there the day before, thank goodness, but just a warning not to get into the issues again.

Maes decided to take the wise course and leave the room after just a couple of minutes, content that things would probably work themselves out. No need to indulge in overkill when he'd said pretty much all he needed to say on the subject yesterday. After checking to see who would be staying in the inner office this afternoon and tomorrow (it was Falman), he favoured everyone with a wave, and breezed back out of the office. It was a good idea, he thought, to let Roy's worries and ruffled feelings settle down a bit, before they talked again at any length.

He still had his own investigations to continue, though. For one thing, he hadn't given up trying to predict where the arsonist was going to strike next. When he got back to his office, he and a couple of other Investigations people studied the map as thoroughly as they could, trying to figure out the exact pattern that had existed before, and why it might have changed, not to mention where it might go next. They placed the map on the study table in the corner of Maes's office, and sat around it.

One of his companions, Major Vanova, a short, easygoing woman with glasses and clipped brown hair, studied the minds of criminals as well as their actions, and made an interesting observation based on the amount of time between each fire. "The attacks seem to come about every two weeks," she mused. "Superficially, it appears as though it could just be that this person is on a schedule – "

"Which was interrupted during that month Mustang was away," Lieutenant Laforge, the other investigator, put in.

"Yes. But on the other hand, if it were simply a prearranged schedule, we could expect that it would be exactly two weeks between fires. There would likely be some consistency. But the wait time varies slightly. Between these two," she pointed to the map, "there was as much as seventeen days. Whereas with these two, the last before Mustang's vacation, there were only twelve days."

"All right," Maes nodded. "So what does that signify, from your point of view?"

"It seems to me that these fires are not necessarily planned ahead of time, but set on impulse, as the mood strikes."

Maes squirmed a little in his chair. "That makes it sound awfully…casual. Don't you think? And what about the spiral, and where it ends? That looks preplanned to me."

"It could just be creative whimsy." Vanova glanced over and chuckled as she noticed his eyebrows, shot halfway up his forehead. "But I don't believe that," she conceded. "I think you're right – that Colonel Mustang is the target. And I also believe you're correct in assuming that the sharpened angle of the spiral indicates an increased danger to the colonel. Whoever this person is, he has begun to feel extra pressure from somewhere."

Laforge asked, contemplating the map, "How do you think that will manifest, Major?"

"I think we can expect to see another sharp inturn of the spiral, or a moving up of the timetable. Or both."

Maes surmised, "And a direct attack on Roy – on Colonel Mustang – will come sooner rather than later."

"I suspect so, yes."

Maes put his finger on the spot where the last building had burned, and followed the spiral around in its new projected path, and then sharpened that angle. "Damn," he muttered. "One or two more buildings, before he hits Roy's house."

"That's right," Vanova interjected softly, "only one or two more." She surveyed the map a moment longer, frowning thoughtfully. "It's rather interesting…," she mused.

"What?" Maes pounced.

"The seeming impulse of these fires…if I didn't know better…"

"You're driving me crazy, here, Major. What are you thinking?"

"I can't say for sure that the impulse is the same, but this pattern reminds me of the sort of thing that Zolf Kimbley would do, if he weren't in prison."

"You know him, then?"

Vanova nodded. "I've done a lot of work with him since his imprisonment. Or at least," with a wry smile, "tried to work with him. And of course, his impulsive acts of destruction happened not weeks apart, but usually just a day or two, or a few hours. So if he himself had been behind this, it wouldn't have stretched out for five or six months. But this is very similar to the sort of impulse and pattern that we've seen in him."

Maes tried to calm his racing heart. It wasn't Kimbley – he knew it wasn't – the insane Crimson Alchemist hadn't escaped from prison or the whole military would know about it, and be engaged in a massive manhunt. And there was no possible way (and no logic to the idea either) that he could be slipping outside every couple of weeks to create a fire, and then slipping back into prison again. That scenario made no sense.

Even if, Maes ruefully admitted to himself, it fit virtually everything they knew about these fires. After all, it probably wouldn't take much modification to adapt Kimbley's method of blowing things up into something a little milder, to create a fire rather than an outright explosion. And that would explain the lack of fuses or other triggers, as well as the lack of incendiary chemicals. Though he'd never admit it out loud, Maes was almost sorry it wasn't Kimbley, because the man fit the scenario so well.

And yet…the imprisoned alchemist might still provide a clue somehow, even if he wasn't the pyromaniac they were looking for. Maes was sure of it. Indeed, now that he realized how perfectly Kimbley fit the profile, he kicked himself that he hadn't thought of the guy on his own by now.

"Major Vanova," he said, unable to prevent the fervency from creeping into his voice, "even if it's not Kimbley himself, he may still be one of our clues. One of the biggest, in fact. Thank you for bringing him up, because this may help us. A lot."

"I should have thought of him sooner. But it wasn't until I saw this map and saw how it correlates with the timing…" The woman shrugged off any potential self-recrimination and added, "I imagine you want to speak to him now, don't you?"

"Oh boy, do I!" Maes exclaimed, and his fellow investigator laughed.

"I'll arrange it, then," she said. "I'd advise that we go together, if you don't mind."

"That would be great." Maes flashed her a grin. "You can keep me from strangling him."

He knew it would take a day or two to arrange the visit; Kimbley was one of the few people incarcerated in a severely restricted, extra secure zone in the maximum security prison in the northeast quadrant of the city. Even Maes, as an Investigations person, needed to go through special channels to get permission, so Major Vanova's extra influence would really help.

Meanwhile, he had other urgent business to attend to. If they had only one or two buildings left before the maniac initiated a direct attack on Roy, it meant he'd have to try to find the next building first, and hopefully catch the arsonist red-handed. So to speak.

Easier said than done, of course, especially considering how well they'd done with that project so far. Police chief Martin was more positive when Maes called this time, but still could only spare a few people to help.

"We think we're close to breaking this grave robbing thing," the man said. "All the signs point to the medical students, and we've even got what we think are some footprints around one of the dormitories at the school. They appear to match some we found near one of the plundered graves. So we're going to set an extra watch around the dorm, in addition to putting extra patrols near the cemeteries."

Maes's heart sank. "So I suppose that means I can't ask for people to patrol another building or two for the next couple of weeks."

Martin sighed. "I'll see what I can do, Maes. I know your investigation is important. Maybe more important than ours right now. Let me see if I can pull a few more people from the cemetery patrols."

"I hate to ask, and I know it's difficult," Maes acknowledged. "If you lose your leads now, you might never catch the grave robbers. Don't short yourself too much. But whatever help you can spare, I'd really appreciate it. Call Lieutenant Laforge – he's arranging the patrols." He and Laforge had gone over the map again after Major Vanova's departure, and chosen three possible buildings that they thought could be the next target.

He had planned to go back out to the earliest buildings that had been set ablaze, to talk to the investigators still going over those scenes, but before he could head out, he had another visitor. Edward Elric knocked diffidently at his door (very unlike his usual behaviour at Mustang's office door), and came inside, shutting the door behind him.

"Where's Al?" Maes wondered, unused to seeing the young man without his tall metal shadow.

"We thought he might be a little conspicuous," Ed responded quietly, pulling one of chairs away from the study table, the legs squeaking as he dragged it to the front of Maes's desk. He seated himself with a little plop. For some reason, his usual flashy smile was nowhere in evidence, and the smudges under his eyes hinted at considerable weariness.

"Hey Ed," Maes leaned forward on his desk, frowning, "you look awful. What's up?"

"It's nothing," Ed assured him with a brief smile. "We're spending a lot of time at night going through those warehouses, and then we have to do our usual jobs during the day. Al could go on for weeks like that, but I'm getting a little tired. We're trying not to let on that we've been doing things at night."

"Is that why you didn't want to be conspicuous?" Maes guessed. "Because you've been going through those buildings?"

"Yes."

"Meaning that maybe you've found something?" This time, he managed to keep his voice from sounding too eager, but this was Ed. He could always sense such things.

"Well…" the young man hesitated, then shrugged with an apologetic smile. "That's the problem, Hughes. We haven't found a thing. We've still got three of the buildings to go through, plus that big one from two nights ago, but so far we're coming up completely empty."

"Then why the need to be inconspicuous?"

"It's just…this really worries me. There are no fuels in these buildings, at least nothing apart from the frames and walls of the buildings themselves. It's like the arsonist didn't use _anything_ to start the fires."

"Which pretty much means an alchemist, right?"

Ed nodded. "There's just no doubt about it, Hughes. We're dealing with an alchemist, all right. And the weird thing is…"

"What?"

"Well, we decided, since we knew it pretty much had to be an alchemist, that there must have been an original array that he used. We've been trying to eavesdrop on your investigators as they go over the buildings – sorry about that," he added, with a mischievous smile that contradicted his words. But it vanished again immediately. "There's usually a place where it's clear the fire first started, before it spread. Or maybe a few places, but there's always a starting point or two. So we began poking around in those spots, looking for traces of the original arrays. And there's nothing – just nothing. No hint of chalk, no hint of any other material that might have been used to draw a transmutation circle. Just," Ed shrugged, "nothing at all."

Maes leaned back again in his chair, fingers steepled under his chin, green eyes narrowed. "Which means…this is someone who either doesn't need a physical array at all – like you. Or someone who carries his circle with him the way Roy does, or Armstrong. Or," he added softly, "someone like…Zolf Kimbley, for example. Who has his arrays carved right into his palms."

Ed's eyes widened, and he took a sharp breath. "Kimbley," he whispered. "Are you saying…you think it's him?"

"It would fit, wouldn't it, Ed? Someone who could probably create exactly the sort of thing we're seeing in all these fires, someone who hates Roy…who's hated him since Ishbal. And who would be just deranged enough to do what we've been watching all these months. It all fits, doesn't it?"

"Then – then we know!" Ed exclaimed. "We know who it is!" He leapt to his feet in his eagerness.

Maes shook his head with a rueful smile. "We would know, if it wasn't for one crucial thing. Kimbley's in jail, and is so thoroughly guarded that there's no way he could have escaped or even slipped out and back again without our knowing it. So no…it's not Kimbley."

"Are you sure?" Ed demanded, bending forward, planting both hands on the edge of the desk, the right one landing with a muffled thunk. His tired eyes had regained much of their sparkle. "Do you actually know he's still there? Have you seen him? How often does anyone check his cell? Hughes, this could be the big breakthrough we've been looking for!"

"I'll know for sure in a day or two, actually. I'm arranging to talk to him."

"Good. It's him – it's gotta be him. You're going to walk in that door, and find an empty cell. I just know it."

Maes had to laugh at Ed's confidence. He almost wished his young friend was right, and they'd walk into an empty cell tomorrow or the day after. Even if it would mean they'd suddenly have a lot more to worry about than a few empty, burned-out warehouses, and even if it meant Roy was in far worse danger than they'd imagined. It was awful, the way they kept looking for answers and finding nothing, and the buildings just kept on burning as though the military and the police and the general citizenry were no obstacle at all to the arsonist's plans. It was getting harder and harder to believe they'd ever solve this thing. And the day when they'd _have_ to solve it, or else lose Roy, was getting closer and closer.

So Maes knew exactly why he was wishing for the unthinkable: Kimbley's escape. At least it would be an _answer_. And at least, then, they'd be able to decide on a concrete plan of action, instead of groping around blindly in the dark as they were doing now.

Ed left shortly thereafter, and Maes finally had the chance to head out to talk to the investigators who were still going over the clues (or the lack of clues) in the burned warehouses.

There was, as he expected, no more news from any of the sites. He couldn't help being disheartened as his investigators reported their lack of results to him yet again. But it was so clear, from their glum expressions, that they were even more discouraged than he was, so he made himself adopt a cheerful smile.

"Don't worry, this sort of thing happens in a lot of investigations," he bubbled reassuringly at his people, so often, and at so many buildings, that it became almost rote. "You hunt and hunt, and find nothing, and then suddenly one small thing turns up that breaks everything open."

One of his investigators, upon receiving this little speech, smiled grimly at him. "Which essentially means," the man said, "that we're supposed to start again from scratch, and go over the same ground again." Behind him, a couple of voices echoed as two men called to each other across an open cement floor.

Maes hesitated, his own smile finally fading. He ran a hand through his hair, the other hand on his hip as he gazed around the blackened shell of the warehouse in which they currently stood. "I just don't know," he answered quietly. "I know how good you all are at this. If you haven't found anything…maybe there really isn't anything to find."

"Now, come on, Hughes," the man raised an eyebrow at him. "You know we'll be going over it again anyway. Don't you start losing hope yourself, okay? You don't really need to give us the pep talk, even though we appreciate it. We all believe that already. We're not going to give up yet, so don't you do it either."

Hughes managed a sheepish smile in response.

That evening, after he and Gracia had put Elysia to bed, they sat together on the couch, gazing into the fireplace. As his wife nestled against him, under the protection of his arm, he nuzzled his chin against her hair.

But she could still sense his tension. "I wish you could really relax," she murmured.

"What, this isn't relaxed enough?" he quipped, stretching his long legs out onto the ottoman in front of him. "Any more relaxed and I'd be a puddle."

He could feel her smile against his chest. "Your muscles are still tense," she said. "And I know your brain hasn't stopped racing since you got home."

"Sorry about that," Maes said, kissing her hair. The fire had gradually burned low in the fireplace, the dancing, flickering flames almost mesmerizing. A brief memory floated through his mind: streaks of blazing fire, gold, red, orange, sweeping the sky as Roy painted flame across the night blackness.

"It's all right. I know why you're thinking so hard. I worry about it too. How is Roy doing?"

Maes rolled his eyes even though she couldn't see. "Hawkeye tells me he's still a bit grumpy, but appears to be accepting the inevitable. I'm thinking I'll stay away from his office for a couple more days to let him cool down. And who knows? Maybe after I talk to Kimbley, I'll have some new insight to report, and it'll cheer Roy up."

"That might be wise. Though you know he relies on your support to keep him going sometimes."

"I know. It's a real balancing act. He's close to Riza too, so I'm sure she's giving him a lot of support when I'm not there." He managed a twisted, self-deprecating smile. "Maybe I'm staying away because I don't want him to hate me, or I don't want to see it when he starts to do so."

Gracia lifted her head and peered into his face. She laid a soft hand along one of his cheeks. "Maes," she chided. "Roy will never hate you. He loves you as much as you love him. That's not going to change."

"I hope you're right. You didn't see how he looked at me when I first told him about the guards."

"Now, don't you be silly. I mean it. Roy isn't going to hate you. In the end, I think he'll love you even more for what you've done to protect him. You've been absolutely tireless, and you're going to solve this. He'll be so relieved it's over that he'll probably take you out and try to get you drunk, to make up for grumbling at you so much."

"And that would be different how…?" Maes grinned. Gracia laughed and settled her head back on his chest again. They hardly spoke after that, cuddling and half-dozing as the fire gradually subsided into glowing embers.

It was just as they were murmuring sleepily about getting off the couch and going upstairs to bed that the phone rang, the harsh jangle startling Maes so badly that he almost threw Gracia aside as he sat upright. "Gracia – sorry! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." She met his eyes as the phone rang again. "You'd better get it, Maes, quickly."

His heart pounding, he leapt from the couch and strode to the kitchen entryway, reaching around to grab the phone. _Please, please, not another one, not so soon!_

"Lieutenant Colonel Hughes? It's Major Vanova here."

"What? Who – oh." He cleared his throat and forced some semblance of calm into his voice. "Hi there, Major," he managed. "What's up?"

"Sorry to call so late, but I just got word that we can visit Kimbley tomorrow morning, around eleven. I wanted to let you know in case you had to alter any plans."

Maes leaned his forehead against the wall. "That's good news, Major, thanks for arranging it so quickly. I don't have any time conflicts at all."

"Good. I'll come to your office, then, and we can go from there."

"Right. See you tomorrow. I appreciate this, and I really owe you one."

He replaced the receiver, but wasn't sure if he could manage to lift his head from where he still pressed it against the wall. He wasn't sure, in fact, if his knees would hold him up if he tried to go anywhere. He couldn't believe the terror that had engulfed him at the ringing of the phone, and the thought that there could be another building on fire – another one to struggle with – another step closer to the terrible outcome he so feared.

Gracia stepped into the doorway and took one of his arms, pulling it around her shoulders. "Come to bed, honey," she soothed. "You need a good sleep. Come on."

Maes lifted his head and gazed at her gently smiling face. "I love you," he whispered hoarsely.

"Of course you do. Now come with me and get some sleep."

It made all the difference, falling at last into slumber in Gracia's arms, his head lying on her breast as she stroked his hair. When morning came, his brief flirtation with terror had dissipated, and he felt ready to get back to work solving this mystery and saving his friend. Maes allowed himself a longer than usual breakfast with his family, and some play time with Elysia, and then pulled on his uniform yet again and headed back to his office to meet Major Vanova…

…to find that Roy Mustang had gotten there ahead of her, and had settled himself into Maes's chair, feet on the desk, waiting for both of them.

"You didn't imagine," he drawled with a narrow smile, "that I'd let you walk into Zolf Kimbley's cell without me, did you?"


	8. A little chess game

Major Vanova, when she arrived, paused in the doorway at the sight of Roy Mustang lounging all over Maes Hughes's chair. Maes himself sat on a corner of the desk, arms folded across his chest and ankles crossed as he stretched his legs out before him. He gave her a wan, apologetic smile as she appeared. "We've got an extra passenger," he shrugged.

The woman's brown eyes moved from one man to the other before finally focusing on Roy in disapproval. "I didn't get clearance for you, Colonel Mustang," she informed him crisply.

He smiled. "Doesn't matter. Hughes goes, I go. It's as simple as that, Major Vanova. And if you try to go without me, I have a car waiting outside in which I will follow you right to the prison gates."

The one smiled pleasantly. "Well then," she said, "it would seem our visit is cancelled." And she turned as if to go.

"No!" Maes cried, leaping to his feet. "I mean…please. This is very important to our investigation. Surely you understand that."

"I'm fully aware of that. But I don't appreciate being manipulated like this," she retorted.

"Oh, calm down," Roy breezed, waving a hand and favoring her with his most endearing smile. (Maes wanted, incongruously, to snicker. He very much doubted that this woman would buy his friend's charm for a second. He'd have to engage in more complex tactics if he planned to win this game.) "Or if you're going to blame someone," Roy continued, "don't take it out on Hughes. He had no idea I was coming until he arrived here a couple of minutes ago."

"You aren't com – "

"Yes I am, Major, and I'll tell you why." Roy pulled his feet off the desk, and leaned over it, staring at her.

And here we go, thought Maes. Cue the opening move: _Earnest Explanation_.

"It's one thing for you to go in there and talk to Kimbley yourself," Roy said. "He doesn't see you as a threat, and it entertains him to watch you try and figure him out. But Maes Hughes is an entirely different matter. Hughes, he'll see as a threat, especially under the current circumstances. And he'll also see him as a means of hurting _me_. You may not have gotten to that little tidbit in your conversations with him as yet, but I assure you that Kimbley would take extreme pleasure in trying to strike at me through Hughes. And I will not risk Lieutenant Colonel Hughes's life like that. Therefore," he sat back in the chair, smiling again, "I'm coming with you."

Oops. He might have undone himself with the smug smile, Maes thought. Looking with great interest from Roy to Vanova, he wondered what her counter move would be. Roy was going to win, of course, but it was always entertaining to watch the variations in the game.

She used what Maes had come to call people's Standard Fallback move. Otherwise known as _Appeal to Procedure._ Sometimes people used the stronger version, _Appeal to Authority_, but that was usually saved as a moved to be played later in the game.

"Colonel Mustang," Vanova bristled, "there are proper channels – "

Maes winced, waiting for his friend to pull out the _Big Guns_. And sure enough…

"Yes, yes." Roy's voice took on a tinge of condescension. "If you really have to cross all the t's and dot the i's, then I'll make some calls while you wait, and get all the right big shots to personally tell you to let me go. I have a feeling that will look worse for you than it does for me."

And that was the tricky part, about the _Appeal to Authority_ or its variations. Whoever used it first had a distinct advantage. And the countermove, to be successful, was usually very strong. Meaning that in this particular case the next move of the opponent, of course, would be _Outrage_. And sometimes it also involved _Pulling Rank_, but that move could also be used in reverse and sometimes be quite effective.

Vanova's eyes virtually snapped with anger. "Listen here, Mustang, you may outrank me, but when it comes to the psychological wellbeing of my patients, my word carries the day. How _dare_ you try that threat on me!"

Maes wanted to whistle in appreciation. She had played the _Pulling of Rank_ and its reverse at the same time. Nice double whammy.

Meaning Roy's _Appeal to Authority_ was in jeopardy, and could crumble around him if he pursued it. But he was a master at this game, and immediately sensed his precarious position. So his next tactic was his classic _Conciliate and Mollify_ move.

Again he leaned forward, his dark hair fringing his face like a halo. "Major. Please. I'm not trying to threaten or intimidate you." (Oh shut up, Roy, you are too, Maes thought.) "But the one thing that could prompt Zolf Kimbley to make extra effort to try to escape, or at least do some serious damage, would be the sight of Maes Hughes standing in his cell. I know my presence will make him worse – and I'm sure that will make your own job more difficult next time you talk to him, for which I'm very sorry – " (Oh good one, Maes nodded. Throwing in the empathy now.) " – but even without me there, he's likely to try whatever he can. And I promise you, neither of you would survive if he succeeds. And I'm the only person with a hope of stopping him. You need me there. I'm going to protect both of you. Won't you let me do that, Major?"

Wow. He didn't always use the _Lifesaving_ finishing move. Of course, it wasn't always appropriate to the situation either. Still, he mustn't be as confident of automatic victory as he usually was. Maes peered with interest at Vanova, who remained in the doorway staring at Roy with narrowed eyes, and wondered if there would need to be a second round.

There rarely was. The woman's jaw tightened but she took a deep breath, reluctance positively emanating from her. Straightening her glasses, she gave in. "I'm going to lodge a complaint about this, Colonel," she said, "but all right. If you insist, and you obviously will, it seems I have no choice." And she turned without another word and launched herself out of the office.

"Mustang," Maes grumbled as the two men walked down the hall after her, "sometimes you are a real rat."

"Relax, Maes," Roy smiled his most untrustworthy smile. "By the time this is done, Major Vanova will be grateful."

Maes lowered his voice. "And by the way," he said, "how did you know she was taking me to talk to Kimbley? You starting to spy on me now?"

Roy looked at him in astonishment, before answering softly, "No, I'd never do that to you. As a matter of fact, I'm spying on _him_. I've got someone inside the prison, watching everything that involves him. Who visits, what happens with his case, everything. Once he was caught and stuck inside, I was determined to keep as much of an eye on him as I could. Because I wasn't lying: I'm probably the only person with a hope of stopping him if he gets loose. So if he ever did, I wanted to know the instant it happened, so I'd have a head start on getting him back in there. Or…whatever else I might have to do."

"Well, I'll be. You surprise me all the time. And I guess your informant told you as soon as the visit was arranged?"

"He called me this morning." Roy flung one of those sidelong, teasing smiles. "So just relax, Maes. Your babysitter is right here."

Maes snorted, rolling his eyes. "Don't pretend this isn't also a little bit of revenge for my putting a guard on you."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Roy smirked, the slightest glint of pleasurable malice in his smile.

Their bantering mood began to fade around about the time the three of them got into the car that was to take them to the maximum security prison. Major Vanova sat silently in the front seat, still radiating disapproval, and Maes and Roy didn't feel quite so inclined to joke once they were on their way. Maes might have sustained it a little longer, but the smile disappeared quickly from Roy's face and he spent most of the ride staring out the window, brows drawn together in a small frown.

Maes sighed inwardly, realizing it was probably best, anyway, to get down to preparing himself for the interview to come. He wasn't even sure yet, what he should ask or talk about. Thank goodness Major Vanova was here to help navigate the perilous passage through Kimbley's tumultuous mind. And…he had to admit…he was awfully glad Roy was here too, despite all the drama surrounding his inclusion. The very thought of being in the same room with someone that insane, who could blow him to quivering red chunks in an instant, and enjoy it too…well, it was unnerving, to say the least.

Roy had been wearing his gloves already, when Maes arrived at the office, and he was showing no inclination to remove them.

The streets of Central rolled by as they drove, the city calm and self-absorbed as the morning moved along, people shopping at markets or walking babies in prams, or striding purposfully in military uniform on their way to some important meeting. The sun appeared and disappeared behind patches of light cloud, gradually climbing toward its height as the noon hour approached.

When they arrived at the high stone walls of the prison, the heavy metal gates opened slowly, almost grudgingly, once Major Vanova stepped out of the car and showed her pass to the guards outside. But the approvals they needed to get, once inside the actual building, were considerably more involved than what they'd encountered at the gate. All three of the visitors were used to the protocols and official procedures of the military, but the number of officials they had to go through before they could get anywhere near their objective was staggering. Vanova, who did this sort of thing on a regular basis, endured it with stoic patience. But Maes's nerves, already unsettled, were getting more and more ragged, the longer they had to wait and the more stages they had to go through.

Roy said nothing through the whole thing, standing like a statue and waiting in his own column of unapproachable silence as each phase of their entry was completed. Maes couldn't tell if he, too, had begun to dread the coming interview, or if he was gathering his inner resources to face this threatening spectre from the past, this dramatic reminder of his own deeds in Ishbal.

At last they received the final approval and were escorted – by six guards, guns at the ready – down a stairway to the deepest level of the prison, then down a long hallway with reinforced walls, toward a doorway at the far end that looked more like the door of a bank vault than of a prison cell. It even had a big wheel that needed two men to turn, rather than a padlock or a key. There was no window.

Maes favoured Roy with a wide-eyed glance at the sight of it, as they stopped to wait. Two of the guards began to roll the great wheel that would release the door, grunting as they pushed in opposite directions.

Roy murmured in response, eyes narrowed, "Wouldn't stop him at all if his hands were free."

Vanova looked at him thoughtfully over her shoulder, as she waited for the guards to finish.

Maes wondered, "How do they get food to him? Do they do this with the door every time?"

"Yes," the woman nodded. "And they have to feed him too, and help with his other physical needs."

Roy asked, "Does he get out at all? Get any exercise?"

"They weren't allowing that at first, but I managed to arrange an hour a day for him, out in the open compound, when all the other prisoners are inside." She shook her head. "Terrible way to live. I'm trying to think of ways we could be more humane, but it isn't easy when he's so dangerous."

"No," Roy whispered. "I imagine you can't afford to treat him humanely when he's got so much destructive power in his hands." Maes saw his friend's own right hand twitch, very slightly, hanging at his side. The other man's frown had deepened, his eyes staring in rapt fascination at the monstrous vault door. And when at last it began to open, slowly, laboriously, Roy's lips parted and he stood still as stone, watching the dark crack between door and wall begin to widen.

Maes thought of Edward, and his stomach took a swooping dive. The moment of the big reveal had arrived. _Let him not be there_, he breathed to himself_. Let us have our answer. Let it be him…_

But he was there.


	9. A deeply unsettling interview

He sat as though enthroned, on a bench along the wall across from the doorway, his long, greasy black hair tumbling down his shoulders and over the front of his light brown prison uniform, his wrists encased at either end of a double-thick stock of wood that had been both padlocked to a post embedded in the floor and attached to the ceiling by thick chains. A couple of lamps set into the wall on either side of the door ensured that he didn't sit in darkness, but they were not bright, and his eyes were shadowed under his brows, the merest glitter seeming to spark there as he watched his visitors enter the room.

Major Vanova walked in and stopped a couple of feet away from the wooden post and the upraised hands. As Maes followed her, he saw a bed set out from the wall on the left, two more thick chains dangling above it from the ceiling. They, he presumed, would hold the chunks of wood just above Kimbley's body as he slept, so there would be no chance of his managing to carve an array anywhere with one of his hands. Over to the right was a table with an empty food tray on it, a couple of chairs, and a pail with a lid. The cell was dry, but the odour of bodily effusions was just strong enough, overlain by the slight tang of cleanser, to suggest that while the room was occasionally cleaned, it wasn't done quite often enough.

And thus did Zolf Kimbley apparently spend his time: sitting alone in this spartan cell, unable to read, unable to leave his bench until put to bed, unable to do touch anything, unable to do anything but think and remember. All he had to break the endless monotony and silence – and only recently at that – was that one hour when, still heavily chained and accompanied by several guards with their guns poised, he was allowed to stand in the open compound and finally see the sky for a brief few moments.

Despite everything, despite all he knew of the man's murderous history and destructive talents, Maes couldn't help the pang of horror and pity that stabbed through him at the sight of Kimbley in this hidden, lonely room.

Catching a movement out of the corner of his eye, he found that Roy had stationed himself farther to the right, near the table, obviously making sure he'd have a clear sight line. Enough space to roast the prisoner if he had to, without endangering the others. Roy had schooled his face into an expressionless mask, but his eyes met Kimbley's, dark to dark, and if it were possible, his face grew even paler than it had been before.

"Zolf," Vanova said quietly, drawing the other man's gaze briefly toward her. "Lieutenant Colonel Hughes was hoping you could answer some questions. I hope you don't mind that you have an extra visitor. I wasn't aware until just before we came that Hughes wouldn't be alone. If you have any objection, we can plan this discussion for another time."

Kimbley smiled narrowly, eyes glittering as he raised his face to look at her. "Mind?" came his soft answer. "How could I possibly mind? I was anticipating a nice little chat with Maes Hughes, but suddenly you've brought me an even tastier treat. Roy Mustang himself." He looked back at Roy and licked his lips, slowly, lasciviously. Except there was nothing sexual in it at all. It had more of an aura, Maes thought with a shudder, of cannibalism.

Roy said nothing, did nothing, his face utterly closed.

"What?" Kimbley spoke again. "Not even a hello for an old friend? What a shame. You used to have such good manners, too."

And still Roy said nothing, maintaining his stoic silence. Maes knew that Roy knew that Kimbley would try to bait him at every opportunity. He hoped his friend could bear it, for as long as they had to be here. Might as well try to take the heat off, a little, though.

Maes cleared his throat, and was rewarded with the shifting of the prisoner's eyes toward him. "Like the major said, I wanted to talk to you."

"Of course you do," Kimbley nodded knowingly. "You've got a really big problem, something all your investigators can't solve, and I'm the only person who can shed some light on it."

Maes raised his eyebrows. "Then you know what's been happening?"

"Not at all. I never get news from outside, unless the good Major Vanova brings it to me. And she doesn't tell me much, even then." Kimbley smiled at his questioner's surprise. "Mustang, look at that. Your favourite pet thinks I can read his mind." He leaned forward slightly, as much as the stocks would allow. "Well, Major Hughes – "

"Lieutenant Colonel," Maes corrected automatically, as he always did, and then flushed when he realized he'd done so.

"Ah yes, as Major Vanova already said. You've been promoted. Congratulations. You see how behind I am on the news. The guards must have stolen all my letters. I'll have to speak to them." Kimbley's eyes narrowed. "But I shouldn't have teased you, should I, about reading your mind? Because I really can. I know exactly why you're here."

"Do you now?" Maes folded his arms across his chest, and saw Vanova's eyes flicker at the protective gesture. Immediately he lowered them to his sides again. "Then why don't you tell me, Kimbley?"

"Like I said. You've got a big problem that no one else can solve. And if you're here, it must mean that you suspect me – which is very amusing, considering the circumstances." He flicked his hands in demonstration, and for the first time the arrays carved into his palms flashed briefly into sight, the curving lines a livid red against his skin. "Or else," he added, "the problem is in my own area of expertise. And _that_ would mean," the satisfaction oozed from his voice, "that you've got someone blowing things up, and you want me to help you catch him."

Maes stared at him for a long moment before replying. "I always knew you were pretty smart," he smiled.

"Oh, I'm even smarter than that. I watched you as you came in. You were disappointed I was still here. You wanted me to be the culprit himself, didn't you?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Maes saw Roy's head turn, and for a moment they shared a look. Even Roy, it seemed, hadn't guessed that.

"Yes, fine," Maes retorted, turning back to Kimbley as he felt his cheeks getting warm with embarrassment, "it would definitely have made things a lot easier if it was really you we were looking for. But it doesn't matter…"

"Because you think I'm going to help you instead? Now why, Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes, would I go and do a thing like that?" Kimbley wondered rhetorically.

Maes had devised an answer to this one last night. "Well," he said conversationally, "I kind of thought you might be irritated that a rival was trying to better your own record. Especially when this guy is as destructive as you are, but has so much more finesse."

He jumped when Kimbley burst out laughing, the sound harsh and loud in this confined space. "Oh Mustang," the prisoner grinned over at the silent man watching from the side, "I see why you like him. He does manage to be surprising once in a while, doesn't he? But no, Hughes, you must be thinking of someone else. Why would I be interested in 'finesse'? That's your flaming hero's way of doing things, not mine. I couldn't care less about 'finesse'. I just like it when things go _boom_!" Kimbley's gaze still hadn't moved, watching Roy's closed face with shrewd, narrowed eyes. "It must bother you, though, Mustang," the man went on, voice lowering, taking on an intimate tone, "to know that one of the Ishbal alchemists is out there spoiling your climb to power."

"'Ishbal alchemists'." Maes pounced on that one immediately. "Who do you mean?" he demanded, unconsciously taking a step closer in his eagerness to pursue the question. "Did you know some alchemists from Ishbal? Do you know who could be setting these fires?"

"Of course we didn't know any alchemists from Ishbal," the man retorted. "They didn't have any. At least, not out in the open. Did you even pay _attention_ to the Ishbalans while you were there, Hughes?"

"It was kind of hard," Maes flung back, "when you guys were killing them all."

"True enough," Kimbley smiled. "Roy and I were killing them as fast as they rose up. Good times, right, Mustang? The good old days. But of course I'm not talking about Ishbalan alchemists. I'm talking about our own people. The stars of the show, the State Alchemists, the fraternity to which Mustang and I belong." The man smiled again, like a shark, again watching Roy as he spoke. "We're brothers, Roy Mustang and I. Twins, you might say. Very soulmates, in fact."

Roy blurted, "We are _nothing_ like – " and then bit off the words as Kimbley smiled, having hit home at last.

"Then what you mean," Maes put in, trying to draw the man's attention back to himself, "is that you think it's a State Alchemist going around setting buildings on fire?"

"Fire?" Kimbley's eyebrows shot up. "That's right…you did talk about 'setting fires', didn't you?" The man's eyes moved slowly from Maes and back to Roy. "Now isn't that interesting…," he murmured.

Major Vanova explained, "It seems that someone is planning an attack against Colonel Mustang, and they're taunting him – taunting the whole military, I think – by imitating his alchemy and setting empty buildings on fire. And each building comes closer and closer to the colonel's own home. Does that suggest the work of a State Alchemist to you, Zolf?"

Kimbley said nothing. He just stared at Roy, dark eyes glittering, the shark smile still lingering on his face. Maes watched uneasily as the two men gazed at each other, Roy unmoving, face cast in stone, his own eyes unnaturally bright, intense with some emotion Maes couldn't fathom. Where was the usual suave smile, the façade of casual amusement with which Roy deflected notice or guided conversations? Why was he unable to muster his lazy smile here, and that drawling, dismissive banter?

For some reason, Maes began to watch Roy's gloved hands, as though waiting for the fingers to snap. Was it a trick of the light, or did he truly detect a tremor in those hands?

Vanova, too, fell silent, looking from one to the other.

"What a thought," Kimbley said softly, at last. "Justice finally rearing its inconvenient head, and descending on the hero of the Ishbal rebellion. You've been back, haven't you, Roy? You've done an unthinkable thing, and gone back to the scene of the crime. You've gone back to Ishbal."

"How did you – " Again the involuntary eruption of words before Roy cut off the question. He took a long, slow, deep breath.

"You thought you could leave it behind, didn't you? The great hero, atoning for his sins by returning home to do good. And climb the ladder of success at the same time. What a stunning hypocrite you are."

"Now look here – " Maes began, but Kimbley went on as though he hadn't spoken.

"Between the two of us, my brother, my twin – I am the one who has always been honest."

"So you think, then, Zolf," Vanova returned again to the main question, "that our culprit is one of the State Alchemists who put down the Ishbal rebellion?"

Kimbley eyed her momentarily, before his eyes wandered back to Roy's face. "Well, Mustang?" he said. "Is it one of the State Alchemists? Have we had any thoughts about that?" He waited as though expecting an answer, but again Roy just stood there.

The prisoner laughed softly, and a cold shiver went up Maes's back. He knew Roy was trying not to respond to anything that was an obvious attempt to bait him, but Maes couldn't understand why his friend was maintaining his silence so…stiffly. Was he afraid he might lose his temper and do the captive some harm? Why he wasn't just laughing this off in his usual way was mystifying. Maes had seen him stand in the midst of genuine danger, surrounded by enemies ready to attack, and drawl his way through the situation without so much as a scratch or the ruffling of his hair. Yet here he was, clearly in no real danger, but seemingly unable to summon his normal casual equilibrium.

Although…Maes had to admit that if someone was staring at him the way Kimbley was eyeing Roy, dark eyes sharp as knives that appeared capable of penetrating to his very soul…he might be a little unnerved, too.

But Kimbley didn't seem to mind the silence. In fact, he appeared to have expected exactly that response. He smiled, his eyes roving up and down Roy's body as though visually dissecting every taut nerve and rigid muscle. "Let's see," he speculated, his voice insinuating itself throughout the cell like a hissing mist. "Who could it be, do you suppose? Basque Gran – but no. He's dead, isn't he? Svenson? She committed suicide, poor deranged woman. So did Jordan."

He was counting them off one by one, holding his left hand in a fist and raising a new finger for each alchemist he named. Up went a fourth finger. "Regis could have been your man, but he's dead too. Isn't that a coincidence? Got drunk one night and killed an entire tavern full of people before the police put him out of his misery. Marcoh?" The Crystal Alchemist was signified by the thumb, and now the angry red lines of the array in Kimbley's palm were openly displayed, pointing directly at Roy. "Now, there's an interesting question. Who knows where he is, after he went AWOL?" Kimbley's voice lowered again, once more taking on the intimate tone, as though he and Roy were alone in the room. "You helped him escape, didn't you, Mustang? Nobody else guessed, but I could see it on your face."

He was almost whispering now, and Maes had to strain to hear. "Marcoh…your great hope for redemption. He thought you helped him out of the goodness of your heart, but we know better than that, Roy, you desperate, selfish bastard. If he could be forgiven his sins, then maybe you could too, wasn't that what you were thinking? You let him escape right after you murdered those doctors, poor little Roy with blood smeared all over you. Just let the Crystal Alchemist become a good man, and do great in the world, and our Flame might be forgiven. But it doesn't work that way, does it, my brother? I've been faithful to you all these years, showing you the real truth. If Marcoh's still alive, then he's still in hell with the rest of us. With you. There is no forgiveness for you, Flame, in all the wide world. You must have figured that out by now."

Roy's face had gone stark white, his eyes two dark holes under the spikes of his hair, opening into the blackness of an abyss. A sheen of sweat had broken out on his face, and he probably didn't even know how he had taken a step back, now gripping the edge of the small table beside him with his right hand, as though to keep himself standing. The other hand, still hanging at his side, had clearly begun to tremble.

Maes's heart pounded in his throat. He should go to him – break this spell the Crimson Alchemist had cast – but he was caught in it too, and couldn't move. He could only watch his friend undergoing a terrible, subliminal attack, and was powerless to help. He, more than anyone, knew how effective this line of attack would be on Roy's psyche.

_Oh, Roy._ He wanted to break out wailing.

Vanova, too, had fallen utterly silent. Maes couldn't tell if she was caught in the same dark enchantment, or if she was merely clinically studying Kimbley's methods and assessing Roy's reactions.

Kimbley, meanwhile, went on as though merely chatting about mutual friends. "I know," he mused. "Maybe it's our strange associate, Alex Louis Armstrong. Oh, but burning down buildings would make him cry. I'm afraid I'm of no help, being out of touch as I am. Do you know of any others who are still alive? Or are any of us really alive?"

It was one of the hardest things he'd ever done, but at last Maes managed to speak, his voice hoarse despite his attempts to speak as normally as possible. He interjected, "We'll – we'll make a list. That's what we'll do, right, Roy?"

Roy's eyes moved to his face, slowly, as though fighting against a compulsion. It was all he could do, though. He made no answer. He looked as though he might never be capable of speech again.

Maes cleared his throat and straightened his glasses, desperate to regain the sensation of normalcy. "Yes. We'll find out who all the State Alchemists were, who went to – to Ishbal. I know where those records are. And we'll find out who remains from that group. At least it gives us something to go on."

"Then I've been helpful after all. Imagine that. Just remember the most important thing, little pet." Kimbley turned his mocking smile to Maes, who couldn't prevent the stab of fresh terror, or the rush of cold sweat down his back. "Every last one of us," the prisoner told him softly, "every State Alchemist who went to Ishbal – the few of us who haven't died – is much more than half insane. Every single one of us," Kimbley's eyes narrowed yet again on Roy's face, "except, it seems, our beloved and heroic Flame Alchemist. My dear Mustang – what a fortunate man you appear to be."

"Well then," Vanova finally spoke, almost cheerfully, as though she hadn't even noticed the tension that had built up between Kimbley and Roy. "I think you've been very helpful, Zolf, even if you weren't really trying to be." She smiled at him – Maes could hardly believe it – almost with a twinkle in her eye.

Kimbley laughed. "Why, of course I helped you, Major. You know what a helpful person I am. And I promise – when I get out of here, I'll leave you to last." He twiddled his fingers at her, favouring her with a narrow-eyed smile.

"Of course you will," she answered, eyebrows this time raised in good-natured mockery. "All right. We'll leave, so the guards can come in with your meal. Thank you for speaking with us. Lieutenant Colonel Hughes, go ahead. Colonel Mustang? Come along now." Brisk and businesslike, she turned and walked out of the cell.

Maes moved to follow, and found he couldn't quite bring himself to turn his back on the man in the stocks. So he had to inch sidelong, flushing as the prisoner's humiliating laughter followed him out. He saw Roy turn his back on his former companion, stiffly motioning the guards inside the room to precede him out. He stepped to the threshold of the cell.

"Mustang!"

The voice inside the room stopped him instantly. He paused in the very doorway, head bowed, a hand leaning on the huge vault door.

"What?" It was almost a whisper.

"Have the night shadows overwhelmed you yet?"

Roy didn't move, yet Maes, who knew him so well, got the impression that the earth had heaved under his feet. He said nothing, made no reaction, eyes invisible under the fall of his fine black hair. At last he took a long, shuddering breath.

And then he half-turned to look back at the man seated on the bench on the far wall. "Zolf," he said softly.

"What is it?"

"Is there…anything you need?"

For a long time, there was no answer. Maes suddenly wished his friend was not blocking his view of the prisoner. And he wished he could see Roy's face.

At last the quiet answer came. "I need the same thing you do, Roy. And it will never come, for either of us."

Roy regarded the Crimson Alchemist for a moment longer in silence. Then he murmured, "Goodbye, Zolf," and turned to come out of the cell.

Vanova had already started back down the long, grey hallway, four other guards having arrived outside Kimbley's cell door with a covered food tray. Maes waited for Roy to join him, and finally started after the major, his friend falling into step with him.

He waited a moment, in case Roy would say something…but of course he wouldn't. As always, he was going to lock away all the memories, all the emotions, and it would be like pulling teeth to get anything out of him.

But equally as always, Maes had to try. "Roy," he murmured, "that was pretty grueling. Are you…all right?"

"Why should it be grueling?" Roy answered softly. "He said nothing in there that wasn't true. We both know that."

"Now come on, you know his interpretation of things isn't – "

"Maes. Please don't." Again the averted face, and the fall of hair that obscured the eyes that Maes really, really wanted to see right now. "I just…can't. Not right now."

Maes sighed. "I understand. But we're going to talk, Roy, eventually." He frowned unhappily and sighed. "I had no idea it would be…like this. I should have called the military police and chained you to your desk, and never let you come with us. I should have known better. I wish I had never let – "

"Maes." A hand on his shoulder as they walked, squeezing very slightly. "Don't start that. I'll be fine." At last Roy raised his head and managed the faintest smile. "You know I'd never have lasted this long without you. So just…don't talk like that."

He dropped the hand and looked forward, to where Major Vanova had reached the door at the far end of the hall. Maes sped up in step with him, eager to escape this place, and the terrifying, mad, pathetic man they had left behind.

But there was no way to escape what he'd seen in that quick glimpse of Roy's face, despite the smile his friend had mustered: the deep, deep pain that had almost drowned him in the days just after Ishbal, the pain Maes had hoped never to see in him again.

He let Roy go through the final door ahead of him, and muttered to himself, "I should have pulled my gun and blown that bastard's brains out before he said a single word."


	10. A surprising aftermath

Maes walked into the outer office, twiddling his fingers in a cheery wave at its current inhabitants: Lieutenants Hawkeye and Havoc. He knew that both Breda and Fuery were napping at home this afternoon, preparatory to their guard duty at Roy's house tonight. He also knew that Breda would have one more night after this, before he was spelled off by Havoc, and that Fuery would be replaced two nights after that by Second Lieutenant Maria Ross, whom Maes had recruited into the rotation.

And right now, Warrant Officer Falman was in the inner office with Roy, having just started the first of his four days in that part of the schedule. (Or, as Roy's people privately called it, "having drawn the short straw.")

By now, Maes could recite the schedule in his sleep. It was even starting to infiltrate his dreams which, until now, had been the almost exclusive preserve of his wife and his daughter. In fact, he'd complained about it to Gracia during breakfast this morning. "If I start dreaming about that stupid schedule all the time, I might as well start taking pictures of it and carrying them around in my pocket, and make the change complete."

Gracia had laughed at him across the table. "You're a silly man," she'd said before taking a bite of her toast and marmalade.

"Daddy's silly, daddy's silly," Elysia sang.

He'd grinned at his little girl, leaning toward her and wiping some jam off her cheek with his thumb. "Of course daddy's silly," he agreed, "because it amuses my darling angel."

"Don't take silly pictures, daddy," she had commanded him. "Take pictures of me. Me and kittens."

'Ah,' Maes had thought, sharing a rueful smile with his wife. 'Alphonse has been talking to her again.'

But the thought of Alphonse had served to dampen his cheerful mood a little, because of the visit he'd had from Ed last evening at the house, just before bedtime. And that visit, in fact, was why he had come to the office now.

"So," he said briskly, pulling himself out of his recollections, "how is the patient today?"

Hawkeye smiled while Havoc rolled his eyes and remarked, "Well, doctor, the patient still has his spleen, you may be happy to hear."

"That bad, is it?" Maes grimaced in sympathy.

"The colonel," Hawkeye supplied, "isn't very patient about things right now. He doesn't sleep too soundly with people in the house. And this whole business of the fires would have been fraying his nerves even without that extra disturbance. So his temper is a little…short. Occasionally."

Maes snorted. "In other words, he's making sure everyone else is as miserable as he is. Typical."

The woman smiled again. "Something like that," she agreed.

"So, Hughes," Havoc asked, leaning back in his chair and linking his hands behind his head, "what brings you here today? I don't suppose you've had a break in the case, or anything?"

"I wish," Hughes shook his head. He was beginning to dread the look of hope people fixed on him whenever he walked into a room. He felt like such a prophet of doom these days. Not exactly the image he usually projected. He added, "No, I wanted to ask about this new assignment for Edward."

"Yeah, Youswell," Havoc nodded. "He and Alphonse were gone on the 8:00 a.m. train this morning."

"I know. Ed dropped in on us last night at home, and told us about it. I don't get it. Why would Roy send him on an assignment right now, of all times? It just doesn't make sense."

The inner door opened upon Roy standing in the doorway, regarding his friend with a sardonic smile. "I thought it was you out here," he said. "And for your information, Hughes, I sent Edward to Youswell because, however much you keep hobbling me, it's still my job to see to the security of towns where there seem to be unusual disturbances. So I have to muddle through and try to fulfill at least some of my responsibilities."

"Yes, but…now?" Maes returned. "When we need Ed here so badly?"

"We need him there too. Hard though it might be to believe," Roy drawled, folding his arms across his chest and leaning against the doorjamb, "life is still going on outside Central, and outside your investigation."

"Well," Maes reminded him, "it's kind of the point to keep your life going on too, if you remember. Look, can we talk?"

"What are we doing now?" Roy smirked. "Mime?"

"Very very funny. But I'm serious. Can I come in? Or do you require an appointment?"

"Like you wouldn't get an order from some bigwig and barge in here anyway, if I refused. Sure, come in," Roy said. He stepped aside to let Maes go past him, but paused again in the doorway. "How are things out here, you two? Anything out of the ordinary? I hope you're managing to keep your heads above water with all the disruptions."

Havoc answered, "We're doing just fine, boss. We're still putting as many minor things on hold as we can, for now."

"All right. Let me know if it gets to be too much, and I'll call for reinforcements." Finally Roy closed the door and turned to his friend. "Well, sit down," he said, waving a hand toward the two couches and the large coffee table between them.

Falman was there, of course, sitting on the couch along the wall, and he glanced up from the files he was working on. "Hello, Lieutenant Colonel," he said.

"Hey there," Maes smiled, before glancing at Roy. "I'd like Falman to leave us alone for a few minutes."

But as Falman began to gather his papers, Roy scowled and motioned him to stop. "No, you just stay right there, please. Remember, Maes? One of my people is supposed to be with me at all times, right? Your rules, if you recall."

Maes wasn't fooled at all by Roy's sudden and uncharacteristic adherence to rules. In the week since they'd gone to talk to Kimbley in prison, Roy had managed never to be alone with him, always finding a good reason why they couldn't talk about anything except what all his people would be allowed to hear. Maes had suppressed his fears and worries as best he could, and hadn't pressed things very hard, although he would have done so if it had looked as though the after effects were hurting his friend too much. Instead, he'd just spoken quietly to Hawkeye, telling her to keep a good eye on Roy, and had let the man try to heal again on his own.

It was agonizing, always trying to decide when Roy was so far gone that he needed some intervention (which he always, of course, resisted), as opposed to just being so far gone that he needed to be allowed to get drunk and take care of himself.

"Yes, well," Maes retorted, "I laid down the rules to keep you from being attacked. Meaning Falman can leave for five or ten minutes, since I'm not about to attack you myself."

"That's a matter for debate, I think." Roy glanced at Falman and nodded in resignation. The man pulled his papers into a file, slapped it closed, and exited with a speed that suggested relief. Roy took his place on the couch, leaning back and laying an arm along its back as he crossed one leg over his other knee. "There you go, Maes. Everything is ordered to your satisfaction, as always. What do you want this time?"

Maes stood behind the other couch for a long moment, bent over, hands leaning on the back. He said nothing – just stood and looked at his friend, trying to gauge whether the man's pallor was worse than usual. Hawkeye was right; he definitely looked tired. And as he met Maes's eyes, the set of his jaw relaxed and he closed his own eyes, rubbing a hand over his face with a sigh.

"All right," he said. "Sorry. I'll stop sniping at you."

"I'm just worried, Roy. You know I can't help it. Tell me how you're doing."

There it was again, fleetingly. That weary sadness in his eyes, before he looked away and answered lightly, "How do you suppose? I've got someone supposedly targeting me for an attack, and I'm sitting here trying to work and live while effectively in chains. How do you think I'm doing?"

"I think," Maes said quietly, "that you're in a really bad way. And…," he hesitated, wondering at the wisdom of this, but said it anyway, "And seeing Kimbley like that obviously didn't help at all."

Roy's jaw set again. "I told you. He didn't say anything that wasn't true. And you've heard me say a lot of the same things myself, in the past. Why should it suddenly be important now?"

"That's what I'm asking myself."

Roy's eyes flew to his face. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know." Maes shrugged helplessly. "It just…it all seems to be related somehow. Ishbal, and Kimbley, and the fires. I'm more convinced than ever that it's no coincidence that the attacks started after you went to Ishbal. There's got to be some connection. And he was right – it might have been stupid, but I really was secretly hoping that we'd open the door and somehow find that he'd escaped, and that he was the guy who was doing all this. Ed was so sure – "

"Ed? What are you talking about?" Roy frowned.

"Oh, I ran into him and we were tossing ideas around, and Kimbley's name came up. Ed thought he fitted the pattern, and was sure we'd solved the mystery. I knew it didn't make sense – that we'd have heard if Kimbley had escaped – but the guy really did fit what we were seeing." Again the shrug, this time a little sheepish. "I couldn't get the hope out of my head, so I couldn't help feeling a little disappointed that Kimbley was actually there."

"So he guessed right, about that," Roy murmured, then allowed himself a faint smile. "Well, Maes, see what happens when you let Ed get carried away?"

"I guess so. But speaking of Ed…what gives, Roy? I really can't believe that you've sent him away right now."

"That's what I mean about trying to function around here while I'm in chains," Roy complained. "He's needed out in Youswell. I can't just stop everything and let the rest of the country fall apart because of our case here."

"But are you sure it was something that just couldn't wait? I mean – remember how essential he and Alphonse were, the last time you had to put out a fire. Imagine what would have happened if they hadn't been there to reinforce the walls when the explosions happened."

"I know what you mean, but what am I supposed to do, Maes? If there's something out there brewing that only an alchemist can sniff out and deal with, am I just supposed to ignore it?"

"No, but aren't there other alchemists you could recruit for the job?"

"There's no one like Ed for this sort of thing. You know that."

Maes sighed. "I guess you're right. I just…Ed's got such insight. He's been…" Again the hesitation, as he finally came around to the front of the couch and sat down across from his friend. "I suppose I should tell you. I've had Edward and Alphonse looking over the earlier buildings, trying to find traces of the alchemist who set the fires. They were the ones who showed us that there were no chemical traces of any fire-setting fuel. That's how we finally realized it was an alchemist without any doubt. So I've been hoping…"

Roy looked down at his hands. "You were hoping they could find out who it was."

"Something like that. Our usual investigators are in way over their heads on this one."

"I see. I wondered why you'd been talking to Ed so often lately." Roy smiled ruefully. "Sorry to disrupt the investigation, Maes. But it's too late now…the boys are gone, and it could be several days before they check in again. So I guess they're out of the investigation now. It might have helped if you'd told me, you know."

"I know, I know." Maes leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "But you had so much on your plate already. And it's not like you're feeling any better, the longer this goes on. I'm really worried about you, Roy. I want to get this solved before the whole thing drives you around the bend."

Incongruously, his friend seemed to relax, and his lazy smile returned. "Come on, Maes," he teased. "Weren't you listening to Kimbley? I'm already around the bend. So you can cross that worry off your list."

Maes snorted. "Right. I feel so much better. Maybe what I'm really worried about is that this is going to drive _me_ around the bend."

Roy leaned forward, matching his pose, and stared earnestly into his face. "Don't let this do that to you, Maes. You're going to be fine. Think of Gracia and Elysia instead of me. There's nobody in this world more sane than you, and you're going to be fine, no matter how this turns out. That…that's the one thing that helps me, while all this is happening – knowing that in the end, you've got them, and they're going to make it all right for you. So don't make me wrong about that. Okay?"

As the conversation ended and Maes breezed back through the outer office, waving farewell to its three inhabitants, it suddenly occurred to him that Roy had managed to divert him yet again. He'd managed to prevent Maes from asking the question, "And what is going to keep you sane, and make it all right for _you_?"

He fretted to Gracia about it frequently, over the next few days, especially as he saw Roy growing more and more exhausted (and his temper more and more frayed) every time he popped in to the office. He knew he was being woefully transparent, whenever he "just happened" to be nearby and therefore dropped in, but he didn't care how obvious he was.

"This is worse than it was before Roy took his vacation," he said gloomily over supper one evening. "I'm almost at the point of going to Hakuro again and recommending that Roy be sent away on leave, to some kind of retreat or health facility or something."

"Oh dear," Gracia frowned, slicing some meat into small chunks for Elysia, "I can just imagine how he'd react to that."

"It would be…horrible. It would probably make him worse, not better. And he'd feel so…betrayed. I can't do that to him, at least not yet. I just can't. But still…" Maes sighed, staring at his meat and potatoes and wondering if he could muster an appetite. "It's really not good, Gracia. Much more of this, and he's going to be as bad as he was right after Ishbal."

"Is that how he seems?" she asked quietly. "Right after Ishbal, he was eaten up by guilt, and ready to kill himself, or do something terrible with his alchemy. Is that how bad he is?"

"Not yet. He's still holding it together, under all the stress. So he hasn't sunk back into that. Yet. But you just have to take one look at Riza's face to know she sees what's happening too. And has no idea how to stop this." Maes set down his utensils and took a drink of water. "It's strange…"

"What is, dear?"

"That visit to Kimbley made everything worse than it was. It's been since then… But Roy knew what Kimbley was likely to say to him. Or at least, he had to have some idea. So why did he insist on going? He said it was for our protection, but Kimbley's security is so tight that we really didn't need it, no matter what he said. And Roy knew that. So why did he want to go? I just don't get it."

But he wasn't allowed to ask about the visit again, unfortunately. Over the next few days, Roy absolutely refused to talk to Maes alone again, and Maes didn't feel he could press the issue without disrupting the entire office. And things had been disrupted among Roy's people badly enough already.

Everyone's nerves were getting frayed, in fact, not just Roy's. Because they were coming up on two weeks since the last fire. And everyone knew what that meant.

On top of that, the investigation of all the buildings was encountering the usual blank walls and dead ends. There was simply _nothing_ in any of them to help the investigators find out what was going on, not a single shred of evidence. If only Ed and Al were still here! Damn Roy for sending them away at the moment when they were most needed! The one thing Maes had hoped might finally provide clues and help them break the case…gone.

So when at last the phone rang again in the dead of night, making him leap out of bed with his heart pounding in his throat, he expected to hear the fire chief once more telling him that another warehouse had been set ablaze.

But instead, Maes heard the voice of Lieutenant Havoc. "Hughes. Sorry to wake you. But you need to come to Roy's place."

"Why?" Maes demanded, choking around the lump of fear in his throat. "Has there been an attack?"

"No. Sorry. Nothing like that. It's just – Roy's in a bad way. It's…really bad, Maes. You're probably the only one who can talk to him. Please come, before…just please come."


	11. A flame in flesh and mind

He didn't even have to knock; the two guards at the front of the yard waved him past, and as he took the porch steps in one leap, he saw Fuery standing in the doorway, waiting for him. All the lights in the house appeared to be on.

"What's happened?" Maes demanded breathlessly. Even though he'd driven here, he'd been unable to get a breath since the moment he'd fumbled with and dropped the phone receiver and turned to find Gracia behind him with pants and a shirt. "Where is he?" he gasped. "What's he done?"

"He's locked himself in the bathroom upstairs, Hughes," Fuery said, his face drawn with worry. "Havoc's talking to him."

"Thanks," Maes breathed, touching the younger man's shoulder. Then he flew up the stairs and down the brightly lit hall, forcing himself to slow down as he approached the spot where Havoc was sitting.

The man didn't even look up. He'd been speaking as Maes came up the stairs, and continued to talk quietly. "The thing is, boss," he said, "we can't just go away and leave you alone. You know we're not allowed to do that, the way things are set up right now. And frankly, Roy…right this minute, the way you're feeling, I wouldn't leave no matter who gave me permission."

Maes sensed Fuery coming up behind him, and whispered over his shoulder. "All right. What's been going on?"

"He was restless all evening," Fuery breathed close to his ear. "He couldn't sit still, he couldn't eat more than a few bites of supper, he just kept getting up and pacing. And then he grabbed one of his gloves and started lighting the fire in the fireplace. And then snuffing it out again. And then lighting it again. And then making the flames bounce around."

"Trying to entertain himself or occupy his mind," Maes murmured.

"That's what Jean and I figured. He was pretty distracted. We tried to talk to him about normal things, but he kept getting us to repeat what we just said, because he hadn't been listening. It was…pretty strange, all evening."

"And what led to this?" Maes asked, pointing his chin at the scene by the bathroom door.

"Well, he finally apologized for being so distracted all evening, and said he'd better go to bed and hopefully sleep it off."

"Sleep what off?" Maes repeated sharply. "Was he drunk?"

"Not that we could see, unless he'd been slipping himself something when we weren't looking. But I really don't think it was anything like that. We just decided he probably meant his restlessness."

"So he went to bed. And then…?"

"Havoc set himself up at the top of the stairs, while I did the usual patrol of the main floor. And after an hour or two, Mustang came out of his room and…"

"And what?"

"I heard them talking," Fuery said, frowning down the hall at Havoc. "I mean…I heard Jean, anyway. I came up the stairs, and I saw the colonel standing by his bedroom door, and…he was all shaky. And his eyes…I don't know how to describe them, Hughes, they were kind of glassy, and it almost looked like he didn't recognize Havoc. He kept looking around like he didn't know where he was, but then he'd finally say something, and you could tell he knew us both, and knew where we were. But he was sweating, and shaky, and kind of…twitchy. I don't know how else to describe it."

"How did he end up in there?"

"I got a little closer, and then he sort of lurched toward me, like he was going to try to leave. But he was so weak, it wasn't hard to grab him and stop him. So then he kind of backed against the wall, and started saying things like 'It's no use, it's no use'. And that's when he ran into the bathroom and slammed the door on us. Jean told me to stay with him while he called you, and then he came back up and sat down like he is now. Lieutenant Colonel," the young Master Sargeant turned frightened, pleading eyes upward, "what's wrong with him? What can we do? Is he going to…hurt himself? You can stop…whatever he's trying to do. Can't you?"

"I'll sure try, Kain," Maes said, as confidently and comfortingly as he could, though he was already feeling pretty shaky himself. "Thanks for giving me the summary. Don't be scared." He approached Havoc, who finally looked up and mouthed the words, "Thank goodness," and stood up to make way for him. The man's grey, gaunt face betrayed how he'd spent the last hour or so.

Maes tried the knob, and then leaned against the door. "Roy," he said. "Hey buddy. It's me. You wanna let me in?" He waited, but there was no answer.

He glanced a question at Havoc, who whispered, "He was telling me to go away just a few seconds ago. So he can hear you."

"Hello, Roy?" Maes tried again. "What's going on? Why don't you let me in and we can have a little talk?"

Again the silence. Maes breathed a question, not even daring to look at his companions. "I don't suppose he…took his gun in there, did he?"

"No," Havoc said quietly. "He didn't have anything with him. And his gloves are still in his bedroom. Don't worry."

"That's good, at least. But…his razor is in the bathroom, isn't it?" Maes asked. And the stunned silence, and Havoc's stricken surprise at the reminder of something he'd obviously overlooked, gave him the answer to that question. "Right, then," he nodded. "I'll have to be careful of that." Again he raised his voice, "Roy, come on, are you going to let me stand here all night? I really need to talk to you about something important."

"Go away," came an answer at last, and he felt as though his knees would give out from the relief.

"Can't do that, I'm afraid," Maes said, voice shaking despite his efforts to control it. "I mean, I actually got dressed and drove all the way over here, just for you. Who else would do that? Are you really going to put all my dedication to waste?" Again a long silence was the only answer he got.

"I suppose," Havoc muttered, "we could just break the door down."

"We might have to, at that," Maes nodded. He raised his voice again. "You know, Roy, even if I leave now I'm never going to get back to sleep after waking myself up so completely. And I'll just worry about you anyway, which I promise you're never going to hear the end of. So why don't you let me in and just get it over with?"

"I said go away!" This time the answer was louder. But now Maes could really hear the raggedness in his friend's voice. He could almost swear Roy had been weeping. Maybe still was.

He resisted the impulse to rattle the knob and bang on the door. "Roy," he said. "You're scaring me. How can I go away now, when I know you're having trouble? Please don't tell me just to walk away from you. Please don't do that. You know I can't possibly do that."

No answer. Maes leaned his forehead against the door. "Please, Roy. Whatever it is, I can help. Just let me see you. Let me try. Please."

"You…you can't help. Why can't you just go away?"

"Because…because you're my best friend. I love you. I can't walk away from you. Not ever. Please open the door, Roy."

He hadn't even realized how close he was to weeping until he heard a rustle on the other side of the door and felt the knob starting to turn, and then felt a tear fall onto his wrist. Not looking back, he motioned Havoc and Fuery farther down the hall as the door slowly opened. It revealed almost nothing: just a murky darkness with only a vague shadowy figure half-melding into the shadows beyond the opening, one arm extended toward the knob on his side. Maes glanced over to cast his two companions a reassuring smile, then stepped into the small room and pushed the door shut behind him. And, feeling around on the wall beside the door, finally found the light switch and flipped it on.

Roy stood half turned away, hugging his arms across his body, head bowed, dark tousled hair falling across his eyes. But as Maes observed his friend, leaning against the open space in the wall just before the sink and vanity, he saw the mottled pink on Roy cheeks, and the sheen of dampness. Had he been right, that Roy had been weeping, or were these the signs of fever? The man stood shivering as though the room were freezing, despite the fact that it was almost suffocatingly warm.

"Well, Maes," came the cracked whisper. "Are you satisfied?"

"Come here," Maes murmured, drawing him close, encircling his quivering friend tightly in his arms. "Dammit, Roy, you should have called me."

"I – I couldn't. There's nothing you can do."

Maes pulled Roy's head onto his shoulder, and tried to still the other man's trembling. "Tell me what's wrong," he said.

"It – it's not as bad as it looks. I have – I think I – I must have – the flu, or something."

"Then you should be in bed."

"I can't. I just lie there – thinking – "

"What, and you're not thinking in here?" Maes smiled a crooked smile against Roy's hair.

Roy managed a soft laugh. "Don't – don't confuse me with logic, Maes."

"Oh sure, Roy, tie my hands, why don't you." He ran said hands up and down his friend's back over the rumpled grey material of his pajamas. He suspected that the garments were worn only for the benefit of the man's nightly guards, since Roy was the type who normally slept in the buff. That was certainly how he'd slept when they were roommates at the academy, at least.

Roy continued to shiver, in quick spasms. "I'm s-so tired," he whispered. "But I just c-can't sleep."

"You should have called me earlier."

"I never called you at all, remember?"

"And that," Maes pronounced, "is our usual problem."

Roy laughed again, briefly, and pulled away once more, running the back of a hand across his damp forehead. He resumed his place leaning against the wall, arms hugged across his chest once again. One of his hands twitched, and he clenched it into a fist. He forced a little smile at Maes, but almost immediately his eyes darted away, surveying the room. The toilet was beyond the sink and vanity, with the elegant claw-footed bathtub on the wall across from them, hung round about with diaphanous silk curtains. Thick, plush red towels hung from gilded rods by the tub and sink, and an equally plush burgundy bathtub mat was set along the length of the tub. Glass shelves had been set above the towel rods, laden with perfumed oils and candles.

Right. He did entertain in here on special occasions, didn't he?

But from the indent on the bathtub mat on the floor, Maes surmised that Roy had been sitting on it, in the dark, hiding from his subordinates. Shivering. And, apparently, trying not to think.

"Hey buddy," Maes said softly. "Go sit down again. You don't look like you're going to stay on your feet much longer. I'll join you."

Roy nodded and moved back to the bath mat, settling himself down with his back against the white tub wall. Maes sat down on the floor across from him, leaning against the vanity cupboard door.

"All right," Maes said. "Tell me what's really going on."

Roy's eyes darted to his face and away again. He couldn't seem to keep them still. And all the while he shivered, clutching his hands on his arms or rubbing them up and down. "I told you," he said shortly. "I have – I think I must have – the flu. Maybe something I ate. I don't know."

"I know Havoc and Fuery had supper here too. But they seem fine."

"So you've – you've come here to c-call me a liar, then. Thanks a lot, Maes."

"Sorry. I don't mean to do that. But I just don't think this is the flu. And I bet this has happened before. Hasn't it, Roy?"

Again a quick, sharp look at him, before Roy's eyes darted away. He leaned his head against the tub and once more rubbed the back of a hand across his forehead. "What are you talking about?" he demanded.

"What did Kimbley call it? The 'night shadows'?"

For just an instant, Roy was utterly still – hands, eyes, breathing – even the shivering stopped. Then it all came back as he averted his face, bowing over his arms so his hair fell across his eyes. "Don't be r-ridiculous," he muttered.

"That's why you didn't want anyone staying in the house with you all night, isn't it? You didn't want anyone around the next time this happened. How often does it happen, Roy?"

For a long moment there was no answer. Until at last Roy murmured, "Not very often."

"So he was right? Kimbley?"

Roy tried to steady himself with a deep breath. He drew his knees up before him, rubbing his hands over his face. "Partly," he nodded.

"What do you mean, partly?"

"It affects us all in different ways," Roy said. "I don't think Zolf ever gets a break from it. Which p-probably explains a lot ab-bout him. Armstrong…it made him more emotional. And me…"

"It does this to you. Has it been doing this ever since Ishbal, then? All these years?"

"No. Not – not that long – oh god, Maes, it's coming again – I can't – it won't – "

To Maes's alarm, Roy unexpectedly dropped to one side, curling up into himself, his whole body shuddering as he threw his hands over his head. Maes crawled over to him immediately, but could hardly do more than just lean over and lay his hand along his friend's back, his hand behind Roy's head to prevent him from banging it against the tub.

"Roy – we have to get you to a doctor – "

"No. _No!_" It was a sharp gasp as Roy forced himself to sit up again, almost throwing himself at his friend, his hands clutching the front of Maes's shirt. "Please – don't tell anybody. It'll pass – if only I – if I could just – I need – I need – "

"Tell me what you need, Roy. Anything – I'll get it – just tell me!"

"_I can't!_" Roy's face crumpled and he bowed his head, pressing his forehead against Maes's chest. "It w-won't stop – I can't – if I could just get out of here – "

Maes pulled him close again, sliding his arms around him. The tears had risen into the back of his throat again. "I'll take you out if you let me."

"You can't – I need – I just need – to be away from everyone – I can't stand this – I can't do this – "

"Oh Roy – "

Roy pulled away from him and leaned back against the tub, hunched into himself with his knees up again, hands buried in his hair. His glazed eyes roved back and forth, back and forth, frantically, as though searching for something. He breathed in short gasps, small sounds of pain coming from his throat.

For a reeling instant, Maes thought of Elysia, huddled in bed making similar sounds when she had a tummy ache or had awakened from a bad dream. But these sounds were much, much worse, coming from a grown man with a cold sweat sheening his body and a mindless desperation in his eyes.

"Stop – make it stop – _make it stop!_" Roy cried.

Maes leaned forward, helplessly trying to think of something he could do for his friend, but all he could manage in the end was to stroke Roy's hair, gently. "It's all right," he whispered. "I'm here. I'm with you. You'll get through this."

"Maes," Roy said hoarsely. "I feel like I'm dying."

"You're not dying. I'm here, I'm going to take care of you. You said this doesn't happen very often, so it's going to pass, and I'm not leaving you until it does. Just hold on, until it goes away."

The eyes his friend raised to his face were the eyes of a drowning man. "It will never go away," Roy whispered. "It's never going to go away. Maes…help me."

"I'll do whatever I can, I promise. In fact, maybe tomorrow we can see if Major Vanova can help – "

"_Don't let that bitch anywhere near me!_"

Maes drew back at the venom in Roy's voice, shocked at the transformation on his face, the man's lips drawn back in a snarl, his eyes glaring and aflame.

"Roy – what's wrong with – "

"Do you think I'm going to let her sort through my nightmares and rummage around in my head like some kind of perverted voyeur?" Roy spat.

"Come on, that's not what she – "

"Kimbley said he'd leave her till last, but he was lying. She'll be the first person he goes for, and I agree with him! If she ever tried to dissect me like that, she'd get to see the work of the Flame Alchemist firsthand! I'd set her clothes on fire, her hair – she'd see the fire all around her…the flickering…the beautiful…" Roy stared at the wall as though entranced, his voice trailing away. And then he gasped for breath as though gulping for air after surfacing from a deep dive. "What am I – what am I saying?" He shrank away from Maes's touch, his body quaking, terror exploding across his face. "I'm sorry – I'm sorry – "

This was terrible. Maes had no idea what to do. He'd never seen Roy like this, not even right after Ishbal. The months after Ishbal had been awful, but it had been a sort of tight, closed despair that Roy had locked himself into. There had never been anything like this haunted, quaking terror.

'I don't think Zolf ever gets a break from it,' Roy had said. Was that really why the Crimson Alchemist was such a madman?

Imagine if Roy had to endure this more than just occasionally…

Maes shook off the thought, and sat back on his haunches. He'd already seen enough to realize that the sudden burst of terror would fade away in a minute. He didn't dare try to touch Roy until it did.

Sure enough, after a moment or two, Roy's breathing became more even again, and he managed to relax a bit, his hair by now plastered to his forehead. "Sorry about that," he murmured. "I get a little…irrational when it sweeps over me that way." He sighed, closing his sunken eyes. "You see why I really didn't want Jean or Kain for an audience."

Maes swallowed the thudding of his heart and forced a chuckle, trying to lighten things up. "I do. You want to keep their respect…"

"…while I've lost yours already," Roy finished obligingly with the faintest smile. He ran both hands up his face and through his hair, leaving it spiked up in several places. "I'm so tired…"

"You really scared me for a minute, there."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Before I came in, I asked Havoc if you'd brought your gun in with you."

Roy closed his eyes wearily. "I wasn't thinking when I ran in here, or I might have."

"Then I got worried about your razor."

"Don't think I haven't thought of it too, the last couple of hours." He stared at the wall and sighed again. "I imagine I'm going to have at least another couple of spells, before it dies down. It tends to go away by morning."

"Tell you what," Maes suggested. "You look like you could actually sleep now, for a bit. How about I get you back into bed while things have calmed down, and stay with you in case you do have another spell or two? I'll make Havoc and Fuery swear not to come in and bother us. And you'll be a lot more comfortable."

Roy looked at him and managed a wry grimace. "Don't you ever get sick of me and all my problems, Maes? I've been more than you should ever have had to deal with, all these years."

"No," Maes said firmly. "I never get sick of it. I'll drag you through to the end of this if it takes the rest of my life."

Roy reached for him and pressed their foreheads together. "I wish you could," he whispered.

Maes smiled. "All right, buddy. Let me help you up, and we'll get you settled back in bed. Come on."


	12. A brief, hopeful peace

On the morning after Roy's rough night, Maes got up and stuck around while his friend continued a deep, heavy sleep. The stricken man had finally managed to nod off, his tremors and the "night shadows" subsiding, about three hours after Maes had come to the house. His slumber hadn't been entirely perfect even in the three hours since then; he'd tossed and turned quite a bit for the first hour (limiting Maes's own chances of slumber), but at last his mind seemed to have come to rest and allowed him to settle into the exhausted, undisturbed sleep in which he lay when Maes woke up.

Maes knew he should try to sleep more himself, but he'd had a couple of hours that Roy hadn't, at the other end of the night, so he made himself get up. He found Havoc still sitting and watching on the top step of the hall stairway, blue eyes bleary and strained, while Fuery yawned as he paced through the rooms on the ground floor. Maes drew them both into the kitchen with him so they could talk. The last thing he wanted was to wake Roy up, when the man needed sleep so desperately. Maes had made sure to turn off the alarm clock before he'd left the bedroom.

The first thing he did, in conference with Havoc and Fuery as the three of them made breakfast, was find out who had been scheduled to spend the day in Roy's office today. Then he phoned to let Breda know he'd be coming to the house instead of going to the office. Maes didn't intend to let Roy out of the house today, if he could help it. Breda would swing by the office first, before coming here, to bring any papers Roy needed to pay attention to. Hawkeye, when Maes called her next, agreed to come by periodically with anything new.

"Maybe," Maes pronounced cheerfully, "we can manage to keep Roy home if we show him he'll still get work done."

"I hope you're right," Havoc smirked. "I think I'd like to stick around to see his reaction when you tell him he can't leave."

"Nope," Maes shook his head. "Aren't you on the night shift again tomorrow? That means you need to go have a little nap. Both of you," he added, wagging an admonishing finger at Fuery.

Havoc snorted his amusement as he added more bacon to the sizzling frying pan. "I'm not sure I'm going to sleep much, after last night." But as though to belie his claim, his mouth opened in a cavernous yawn.

"I know I won't," Fuery said, pouring out the orange juice. "I was so scared last night. Are you sure he's okay now, Lieutenant Colonel?"

"No," Maes made the frank admission. "I don't know anything. He seemed to calm down eventually, but we'll have to see how he's doing when he wakes up."

"What was wrong with him?" Fuery asked, his eyes wide and anxious behind his round glasses.

Maes hesitated. He remembered Roy's comments about having Havoc and Fuery for an audience, and figured that his friend wouldn't exactly enjoy having his psychological problems made public, even to his own people. "As far as I could tell," Maes shrugged casually, "it was some kind of flu."

"I've never seen any flu like that before," Havoc muttered.

"Neither have I," Maes agreed. "Neither had Roy, actually, which was the problem. I think that's why it took him by surprise, and he didn't know how to handle it."

Fuery stared at him. "Are you sure that's all it was?" he asked slowly. "He looked like he could…do something terrible. Are you sure it was only the flu?"

"We talked about it," Maes lied reluctantly, "and we decided that was probably what it was. It came up so quickly, and was so strong, that it scared him too, for a while. But it started to pass after a couple of hours, and then he started feeling better. So don't worry, Kain, okay? Both of you – don't worry about him. He'll be fine, after he has a good sleep."

He hated deceiving the two men like this, but he knew Roy wouldn't want them hovering around him all the time, fretting. He had enough people hovering as it was. But Maes wished he could believe his own words. He really wasn't sure what they'd see when Roy finally woke up today.

And how they'd deceive Hawkeye about this, he really wasn't sure. But that was a hurdle to leap later this morning when she came by with news from the office.

Before the three men had finished breakfast, Maes glanced out the doorway from his seat at the kitchen table, and saw with alarm and disappointment that Roy was stumbling down the hall toward him. Maes leapt from his chair and met his friend at the door, peering at the man's tousled hair, grey face, and half-closed, bloodshot eyes.

"Roy, you look terrible," he muttered. "You shouldn't be up."

"Thanks for the compliment, Maes." Roy managed a wry smile. "I couldn't sleep when I started smelling breakfast. I'm starving."

"Colonel," Fuery said anxiously from where he stood beside his own chair, "how are you feeling?"

Roy leaned against the doorjamb and his eyes moved from Havoc's face to Fuery's. "Sorry, you two," he said calmly. "I didn't mean to give you such a scare last night. I've never had a flu like that before."

"So that's what it really was, sir?" Fuery asked. "We were worried."

"I know." Roy's eyes flickered toward Maes and back again. "But that's really what it was. I feel better already. I was pretty delirious last night."

"I just hope, boss," said Havoc, leaning back in his chair, "that you're planning to go to a doctor about it."

Roy regarded him in silence for a moment, then grimaced. "Maybe," he said. "But right now, I'm really hungry."

He started toward the table, but when he wavered on his feet, Maes offered an arm and led him there. It was a measure of how weak Roy still was from last night's ordeal that he didn't even try to fake the ability to make it on his own. Fuery pulled out another chair and he sank into it with a sigh of relief. As Havoc got up to put some food onto a plate for him, Maes sat down beside him.

"I suppose I should tell you how the day's going to go," he ventured, faking a bright smile.

Roy scowled suspiciously, completely undeceived. "Planning my life again?" he demanded.

"Only a little," Hughes answered, his smile turning sheepish. "I just thought you could use more sleep, so Breda's going to come here with your files, and Hawkeye will stop by a little later. That way you won't have to get all dressed for work, and put on a public face today. So what do you think? Does that sound so bad? Or are we going to go through the usual argument?"

For a moment he wondered if Roy was going to get all huffy, as he usually did, and immediately leap up and start getting ready to go into the office. But instead, his friend set an elbow on the table and leaned the side of his head on it. Yawning, he gave Maes a wry smile and said, "All right."

"I beg your pardon?" Maes blinked.

Roy laughed softly. "I'm too tired to argue. I think you're right; I could use some more sleep. So I'll go back to bed for a while after breakfast, and then I'll look at what Breda brings over. Will that do?"

Maes couldn't help it. He stared at his friend in surprise, reddening at Roy's obvious amusement. "Well, of course it'll 'do'. But are you sure you're not still delirious?"

Roy laughed again, lifting his head and sitting back as Havoc set a plate in front of him. "You're such an idiot, Maes," he said, smiling. He lifted a fork, and immediately dropped it. Picking it up again, he drawled, "Just so long as you don't try to feed me, we'll get along fine."

Maes snorted. "I'm your friend, not your dad," he shot back. "With some things, I do draw the line."

Though he wondered, watching his friend eat, if he really meant that, and wondered what his line might actually be with Roy, in the end. It wasn't something he'd ever thought of before. Was there anything he'd ever _not_ do for Roy, if the guy needed it? Frankly, he couldn't think of what it might be.

The rest of breakfast wasn't quite the relaxed and cheerful affair as the last time Maes had woken up in this house, but it was still surprisingly pleasant. Roy seemed to go out of his way to be agreeable, and he was especially nice to Havoc and Fuery, as though trying to make up for the scare he'd given them during the night.

He and Havoc bantered back and forth until at one point, Roy actually shoved his plate away, buried his head on his arms, and laughed helplessly until he was out of breath. The two of them egged each other on, both being so tired they were almost drunk. Maes looked on with pleasure. He knew the two men were close friends, in their way, but rarely got to express that friendship without the impediment of their different ranks, not to mention their commanding officer/subordinate relationship. But this morning, being as tired and punch drunk as they were, the barriers between them didn't seem to matter.

Maes would wonder, even years later, if there was something he should have seen, should have noticed in Roy's behavior at breakfast that morning, that might have alerted him and given him the chance to change things. But he was so relieved at how relaxed Roy was, how at ease he seemed, the way anyone would be in the emptied, cleansed period after a heavy illness. If there was some sign of things to come, he just didn't see it. None of them did.

Breda arrived as breakfast ended and Roy's three other visitors were washing and putting the dishes away. Roy himself had turned his chair around and sat watching them, his legs stretched out before him, a cup of tea cradled between his hands on his stomach. He greeted his subordinate with a smile, and then spilled his tea from laughing when Breda complained about missing breakfast.

Havoc smirked, "As though you haven't already had a great big breakfast at the diner already. How's that waitress – what's her name? Jane, or something?" He flashed a wink at Roy, who grinned back.

Shortly after that, Roy saw Havoc and Fuery off at the door, and then decided to go back to bed for a bit while Breda worked on some files at the kitchen table. Maes paused with his friend at the foot of the stairs. "So, you going to be okay if I go home now?" he wondered.

"I'll be fine," Roy assured him. "Go. I'm sure you need a bit of a nap yourself. And a shave," he teased.

"I always need a shave." Maes ran a hand through his hair. "I think I might grab a few extra winks, though," he agreed, "and go into the office after lunch."

"Sorry to keep ruining your schedule like this."

"Stop apologizing. You're not 'ruining' anything. Though you now owe me some big favours," Maes added with a grin.

"After all these years," Roy smiled, "I owe you so many favours that I should be in debtors prison by now."

"You could give me this house in lieu of returned favours, and I'd rent it to you," Maes suggested, "for not much more than you're paying for it now." And Roy gave him a weak punch on the shoulder.

Maes watched him start slowly and laboriously up the stairs, and sternly resisted the impulse to leap up and throw an arm around his waist and help him reach the top. Roy was just tired, but he was recovering. Enough was probably enough, with the babysitting.

His friend stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to look down with a quizzical, knowing smile. "See? Made it," he said. "You can go home now. Mom."

Maes snorted. Roy gave him a wave, and his laughter came softly down the stairs as he moved out of sight, heading for the bedroom.

No sign at all.

Gracia and Elysia gave him a specially warm welcome when he got home, his daughter almost leaping into his arms and his wife pulling his head down to her shoulder and holding him in silence for a few minutes. She knew what a toll these incidents with Roy really took on him.

He briefed her quickly on what had transpired in the night. As she drew back from the embrace, she searched his face soberly. "Is he going to be all right?" she asked.

"For now, I think," Maes said. "But after this other business is over – if we ever find a way to finish it – I think he's going to need to talk to someone." He thought of Roy's reaction to the idea of talking to Vanova, and suppressed a shudder. Then he smiled wryly, "I might send him back to that teacher in Xing – Mr. Ian Woon – to relearn the guy's relaxation techniques. I might even go with him, and learn them myself, after all this."

Gracia led him upstairs and made him change into his pajamas. Then she brought Elysia into the bedroom, and both of them tucked him into bed for a nap. In fact, Elysia gamely tried to lie down and nap with him, but she was a long way from nap-time, and couldn't manage to lie still. Finally she agreed to Maes's controlled, teeth-gritted-but-smiling suggestion that she might like to play downstairs and nap with daddy later. She sat up on the bed, gave him a big kiss on the cheek, and left him alone at last to sleep.

Unfortunately, he only got to nap for an hour before the first phone call. He dimly heard the ringing, but it wasn't until he felt Gracia's touch on his shoulder that he realized he'd fallen asleep again in the moments between the ringing and her appearance in the bedroom.

"Wha…?" he mumbled, lifting himself slowly out of the bog of slumber. "Wha'sit? Roy?"

"No, dear, it's Edward. Calling from Youswell."

Maes sat up, blinking and reaching blindly toward the nightstand for his glasses. He felt someone place them on his face instead, and managed a smile at Gracia as he yawned.

Ed made no preamble. "Hughes," he demanded, as Maes yawned again into the phone, "tell me what happened when you went to see Kimbley. Was he there?"

"Yes he was, Ed," Maes told him. He registered the unhappy silence at the other end of the line, and added, "Sorry to disappoint you. I was kind of hoping you were right, and he wouldn't be there."

"What about figuring out a way to sneak out at night?" Ed couldn't quite let go of his hope just yet.

"That really couldn't happen, I'm afraid," Maes said. "I know how you feel, but Kimbley isn't our guy." He smiled at Gracia as she slid a chair over to the wall by the phone so he could sit down.

"But that means…" Ed's voice trailed to an uneasy stop.

"Yeah, I know. We've got someone as powerful as Kimbley out there. In fact, he suggested it might be – "

"No. Not a State Alchemist." The young man's distress and denial came loud and clear over the long distance of the phone line.

"Not just a State Alchemist, either, but one of the alchemists who got sent to Ishbal during the rebellion. Kimbley says they're all nuts, and this is the sort of thing one of them is likely to do if they snap. Or at least, he implied it. I don't know if we should believe him or not, but we've made a list of the ones who are still alive." Maes shifted in his chair. "Ed, do you have any idea how many of those alchemists are dead now? You wouldn't believe the number who've committed suicide or gone right out of their minds, or both. I had no idea till we got the list."

"Hughes. This is awful."

"Yes and no. It does finally give us some possible leads."

"Yes but – but the State Alchemists from the Isbhal rebellion – you have to know what that means – "

"Ed, we're looking into all angles. Really. We're doing everything we can to figure this out."

"Do you still have people guarding the colonel?"

"Yes we do. We're going to make sure nothing happens to him." A long silence. "Ed? You still there?"

"Yes. Look, Hughes, I've just decided. I'm getting on a train tonight and I'm coming back to Central."

"What? Are you finished your assignment?"

"Forget the assignment. I'll do it later. But I really need to talk to you about something – something I think we've been missing – but I think we'd better talk about it in person."

"Come on, Ed. If it's pertinent to the investigation, I need to hear it now."

"No. You'll just get mad and hang up, or something," the young man sighed. His distress was almost palpable. "And we've really got to talk this out where you can't walk out or hang up on me."

Maes didn't think he'd ever heard Ed sound quite so miserable. He didn't know what to make of it. "Look, you know I'd never do that to you. Are you sure you can't tell me anything? Can't you at least give me a hint?"

There was a long pause at the other end. "Only…only that I think Kimbley is right. It's one of the Ishbal alchemists. You have to consider all of them, Hughes. _All_ of them." Ed's voice rose a little, his agitation seeming to grow. "But I'll be back soon – I'll really pull rank and use all my clout as a State Alchemist this time, and I'll get an express train. Hold off on anything till I get back, if you can. You're going to need the strongest alchemist you have, to finish this. I mean it. Can you wait till I get back before making any move?" Maes couldn't believe the plea he heard in the young man's voice. "Even if – if you do figure out who's doing this, will you promise not to do anything about it, or let on that you know, until I get back?"

Maes straightened up on the chair, answering uneasily, "I'm really not sure I like the sound of this. I'll try, Ed, but…you know we're mostly at the mercy of this guy's own schedule. He's almost due to burn down another building. If we have a chance to catch him, I might have no choice."

"Hughes, you _have_ to wait. Please. If you try to catch him without me there, you could get hurt. I think you're safe, but you can't take any chances. If you find him when he's in the middle of setting another fire, I don't know what he'll do, even to you. _Please_ try not to take any action till I get back!"

"All right, all right, I'll try."

"And I have another big favour to ask…"

"What favour? I think you're already asking an awful lot, Ed."

"I just…please don't tell the colonel I'm coming back. Okay? He'll…well, he'll just get mad, and he doesn't need that on top of everything else. This is really important, Hughes, and I'll explain when I get there. I'll explain everything. Will you promise? Please?"

"Okay, I guess. He'll kill me when he finds out I knew, but I suppose we can put that off until then. He already yells at me about everything else, and I could use a break."

"Thank you. Really, Hughes – thanks." The relief was clearly audible in Ed's voice. "I'll come straight to your place from the train station. I need to talk to you, and I have to do it in person."

"I have to say, Ed, you're making me worry."

"I know. Sorry. Just remember – don't tell anyone I'm coming back. Not _anyone_. I'll get there as soon as I can."

Even after the connection had been broken, Maes stared for a long moment at the receiver in his hand. "Now that's disturbing," he murmured. A small knot had begun to form in the pit of his stomach. He wasn't sure why.

"What's wrong with him, dear?" Gracia wondered, turning from the sink where she was doing the morning dishes.

Maes looked at her in silence for a moment. 'Not _anyone_,' Ed had said. But surely…?

He looked away, replacing the phone and standing up. He was sure he hadn't actually said he was expecting Ed back in town. He shrugged, "Oh, he's having some difficulties with his assignment in Youswell, and he wanted to ask me about them before he bothered Roy. He knows how tense Roy is these days. He was hoping he wouldn't have to lay this burden on his shoulders too."

It was a plausible lie, and it made him feel sick to tell it. But Gracia seemed to accept it, and he gave her a quick kiss before grabbing a towel and starting to dry the dishes.

He'd hardly done two bowls, though, when the phone rang again. "Oh, what now?" Maes grumbled, tossing the towel over his shoulder and going to the phone. "Hughes here," he said.

"Hughes, we have good news." It was Police Chief Martin. "We found the six medical students who were robbing the graves. A couple of them cracked when they realized we were getting close, and came to us. They showed us their tools and where they were keeping the bodies – everything."

"Well, good," Maes smiled. "I bet it's a relief to have that load off your mind."

"It is, but it's also good news for you. We can free up several more people to patrol for you. Just give me the locations where you want the patrols, and we'll be there."

This call, at least, helped dispel the uneasiness Maes felt after Ed's call. Combined with the possible leads on the list of alchemists, maybe it meant that they were finally going to get somewhere. Maes quickly dashed to his desk to grab the map of the city and, setting it down on the seat of the chair that still sat by the phone, he followed the spiral of previously burned buildings and listed off five blocks he wanted covered.

"I hope that's not too much," he said when he was done.

"No, I think we can do it. I'll assign the people right away."

Maes was smiling as he replaced the receiver again. Maybe they had a chance now. Before returning to the dishes, he made a quick call to Roy's house, to check with Breda. The line was busy, though; Breda or Roy, he guessed, on the line to Hawkeye or else doing other business. That was a good sign. He'd try again in an hour or so.

He returned to Gracia's side, giving her another kiss just for good measure. However he might still be fretting after Edward's phone call, at least he had good news on other fronts. There might even be some hope that they were going to solve this "pyro business" once and for all.


	13. A deadly reversal

When Elysia had been put to bed that evening, and Maes settled with Gracia on the couch in front of the fireplace, he decided he'd had a pretty productive day, even if he'd ended up staying home instead of going in to work. He'd called the office to let his investigators know there would be some extra police patrols starting tonight, and they'd caught him up on any news they had (which wasn't much). He'd managed one call to Roy's place at mid-afternoon, where Breda told him that things seemed to be fine, and mentioned that Roy himself had been doing a lot of work over the phone. This was reconfirmed later on in the afternoon, when Maes had called again a couple of times and found the line occupied.

After lunch, he'd laid down to nap with Elysia again, and this time both of them had slept. They'd had a fun afternoon of playing, in between a few more work-related phone calls.

All in all, it had been a good day. And now Gracia snuggled against him, in the curve of one arm, and each of them was just starting to get engrossed in a book for the evening. He reflected that life just couldn't get much better than this.

But when the phone rang for what must have been the twentieth time that day, Maes sighed. "Not again," he complained. "Can't we have just one uninterrupted evening?"

"Let me get it, dear," said Gracia, starting to get up.

"No, it'll be for me, you know that." Maes touched his wife's shoulder, pressing her back onto the couch. "Stay here and read, and I'll be back in a minute," he added, hoping he was right.

He stepped into the kitchen doorway and reached around for the phone. "Hughes here," he said.

He was to remember that as the last calm, relatively happy moment he would have for a long, long time.

"Hughes! You have to come – it's another fire!"

He recognized the voice immediately. "Breda? What's going on?"

"I told you, there's another warehouse burning."

"But – but – " In his shock, Maes couldn't seem to think. "It's not the middle of the night," he finally managed, stupidly.

"Yeah, well, tell that to the arsonist. He's changed his schedule. And something else changed today too – the order came just before suppertime. The guard at Mustang's house was cancelled."

"_What?_" Maes yelled. A movement at his side alerted him to the fact that Gracia had joined him, frowning in worry. "Breda. Please tell me you're joking."

"Nope. Mustang did it himself, just after you called. He phoned Hakuro's office and talked to the general for a long time, and by the time he was done, he persuaded Hakuro to rescind the original orders."

"That stupid – dammit, Roy!" Maes exclaimed, running an exasperated hand through his hair. "Where is he now? Is he all right?"

"He's home. Hawkeye's just gone to get him now."

"Okay. Well, I'll yell at him later, after we've got this building under control. Give me the address and I'll get over there." When Maes slammed the receiver down, he burst out, "I don't know what in the world is going on in that head of his, but I'm gonna _kill_ him if he pulls this sort of thing again. He got Hakuro to rescind the order putting guards on him, Gracia. What's the matter with him? Does he have a death wish or something?"

His wife touched his arm. "So there's another fire? I'll get your coat, honey, and you put on your shoes. I don't understand Roy either, but you were right – you have to get the fire taken care of first. Then you can try to figure out what's really wrong with him."

He did up his shoes, threw on the coat that Gracia brought to him, and, giving her another apologetic kiss, dashed out of the house. One of these days, they might get back to a way of life that didn't involve him running out of the house in the middle of the night any more. Though at the moment, it felt like they were caught in a nightmare that looped around and around, constantly repeating itself.

Except for tonight, he thought as he quickly drove through the dark streets toward the building Breda had indicated. Tonight was another change in the arsonist's pattern. This was the first time a building had been set ablaze in mid-evening rather than in the middle of the night. And he had no idea what this particular change might signify. The new mystery simply added to the tension and frustration of the whole case.

Maes didn't really need Breda's directions; the skies had gradually grown more overcast through the day, and now the angry red of the flames reflected off the cloud cover above the city. Long before he got there, he could tell that at least one pattern hadn't been changed: this new fire followed the spiral leading gradually to Roy's house.

Damn the man! As Maes stopped the car at the end of the block and got out, running, he vowed that this time he'd get orders from the Fuhrer himself, and threaten Roy with literal confinement if he wouldn't cooperate. Enough was enough.

'Then you can try to figure out what's really wrong with him,' Gracia had said. She was right, Maes thought grimly. There was much more going on with Roy than just tension and uncertainty from being under threat for so long. Last night had demonstrated that, pretty clearly. They were bloody well going to get to the bottom of Roy's problem, and soon, if it was the last thing Maes ever did.

But he had no more time to think about that, just now. He saw Havoc near the side of the two-storey building, waving a water tank truck slowly into a driveway, and ran up to join him.

The attempts to put out the fire were well underway. This warehouse was unusual compared to most of the others: it only had two floors, and was more of a long rectangle than a square. Havoc was guiding the tanks and pumps along one of the long sides, shouting directions at two trucks while a couple of others backed out in preparation for getting more water. There was much hollering over the roaring of the fire, and a lot of rushing around by people clearing away used hoses and making room for the new ones to be unfurled. Apparently, Breda was doing the same thing as Havoc, on the other side of the building. And there were bucket brigades on the two shorter ends, with Fuery and Falman in charge of those.

It struck Maes, suddenly, that it always seemed to be Roy's people who were first called to these fires. It was probably logical, since they knew Roy's methods so well, and by now were expert at holding down the fort until he arrived. They seemed to sense where to direct the jets and thrown buckets of water, to make sure the fire didn't spread too badly before he got there, and to prepare the building for him. But they must be mentally and physically exhausted by now.

And picking the right spots to direct the water was more difficult with this one than with some of the earlier buildings. Previous fires tended to concentrate in a few spots inside the warehouses, but this blaze seemed to be burning all along the inside of every wall. Each window was a square of orange outlined in black, with billows of black smoke funneling steadily from the top edge. So far the outer brickwork was holding, and the frame seemed to be maintaining. But this meant that the best they could do was try to direct the water in through the windows. The tank truck personnel were using their ladders to hit the windows on the upper floor, hoping they might douse the flames there and drown the fire from the top down. It didn't seem to be working too well, though.

For a while, Maes joined one of the bucket brigades that seemed a little thin on personnel, and his consciousness was reduced to nothing more than grab-balance-pass, grab-balance-pass, sending the water toward the front of the line as quickly as possible. He threw off his coat almost immediately, working only in shirtsleeves as the heat of the fire made it feel like he was standing in front of an oven.

Not long after he joined the line of buckets, he sensed a pause in the steady movement along the line, as a series of bangs resounded over the deep voice of the fire. He looked up at the building, and another couple of bangs boomed through the air. The ground shivered very slightly with tremors under his feet.

He whirled around to everyone in line behind him, yelling, "Get back, _get back!_" Waving his arms at them, he leapt ahead to start pulling back the people ahead of him. "Come on, _move!_ I think something is collapsing in there!"

He waited just long enough to see that everyone in the lines at his end was backing away, and then he sprinted around to the longer side of the building. He saw Havoc, halfway down, already waving people away from the wall, with two tank trucks trying to back up just as two others had begun to draw close.

With a sound like the world cracking, the roof of the building caved in, making the ground shudder. Billowing clouds of black smoke exploded out from the tops of the walls as chunks of brick cascaded from the upper storey, smashing on the driveways and sidewalks all around the building. The fire inside wavered momentarily, hampered by the smothering material from the roof. But then the fresh oxygen rushed in behind it, and the flames seemed to pause to draw breath before roaring hungrily back to life, surging high up into the air with renewed strength.

Maes took a breath to shout for a fresh deluge of water, but a sharp sound distracted him – a sound he'd learned to hear over any kind of other noise, even gunfire – the sound of fingers snapping.

Roy stood in his uniform in front of the traffic jam of water wagons, right arm raised over his head, frowning in fierce concentration at the wall above him. Hawkeye stood at his side, feet braced, watching him. Maes felt a whooshing sensation, as though a wind had rushed in, feeling for a few seconds as though a blanket had descended, flattening his hair and deadening the air. He gasped for breath as the oxygen thinned, watching Roy snap the fingers of his other hand, aiming for the windows. He must be trying to smother the flames from above and below simultaneously. He snapped again, both hands at once, and the flames above him seemed to writhe in protest, twisting, reaching upward with thin, desperately mangled fingers.

The arrays glowing blood red on the backs of his gloves, Roy clenched his left hand, and the brightness in almost all the windows went out abruptly. A few of the flames remained alive on the upper floor, struggling upward for fresh oxygen. Roy allowed them to live just a little longer, moving his fingers to make them dance for him, streaking against the heavy sky overlooking the walls. He flicked a couple of fingers, and the fire split into fine tendrils, then as he moved both hands, they twirled about each other, braiding together in streaks of red and gold.

All movement ceased below the walls of the building. Maes saw them all – the firefighters, the military personnel, police, the civilians who'd been manning the buckets or stopping as spectators – every single one of them stopped in their tracks, faces turned upward, watching the delicate ribbons of fire flaring out like tree branches, dancing around each other, twining together in increasingly ornate designs. The streaks of flame twirled upward and upward, some exploding at their tips into starbursts like fireworks, others shaping themselves into birds, flying into the clouds and vanishing, and still others remaining earthbound, to wind together and bow to each other in their intricate waltz.

Maes fought down the lump in his throat as the wonder seemed to coalesce inside him. He'd never seen anything like this. Never seen anything so beautiful in all his life.

He dragged his eyes away and looked at Roy, fighting an unexpected onslaught of tears. Hawkeye remained at her colonel's side, watching his face and the movements of his hands, her own face almost expressionless, which made the tears streaking her face all the more incongruous. Roy's expression had softened, the frown now gone, his lips parted, eyes raptly following the enchanting movements of the flame as he worked his magic. He was truly the master of fire.

_He loves it_, Maes thought.

And suddenly he couldn't breathe.

The fire snuffed out abruptly, the spell broken, and now whatever Investigations people there were around the building rushed to light lamps and torches, so they could see what they were doing in the aftermath of the blaze. Maes began calling out to the other workers and spectators, the habits of duty and procedure reasserting themselves automatically. "Try not to disturb anything! We need to look for evidence in the building as soon as it cools down!"

He walked over to Roy and touched him on the arm. Roy blinked as though he'd been daydreaming, and turned a weary smile on his friend. "Hi there," he said. "Cleared up another one."

"Were you home when Hawkeye got there?" Maes demanded. "Or were you out somewhere, enjoying your new-won freedom?"

Roy sighed, his eyes sliding off his friend's face. "Can you yell at me later, Maes? I was home, being good."

"He was, sir," Hawkeye nodded. She had wiped her face dry, and now gave no sign that anything had moved her to tears. "He was sleeping when I got there."

"I went back to bed after Breda left," Roy amplified. "I was still tired after last night."

He'd been in bed. Sleeping. Maes felt the inexplicable knot in his stomach loosen, very slightly. "Well," he said grimly, "we're going to talk all about Breda leaving, but I'll save it for tomorrow. Meanwhile, I don't care what Hakuro said, I'm putting people around your house again tonight."

"Fine, fine," Roy agreed, waving his hand in that maddeningly dismissive way he had. "Do what you like tonight. I'm too tired to argue."

Maes bit his tongue. That was what he'd said this morning, too, about staying home and not going in to work. And then had proceeded to work rather hard, it seemed, undermining his friend's plans to keep him safe. Maes wanted to smack him across the face.

Time for that later. "Stick around," he said tersely, "in case there are still hot spots."

"Don't I always?" Roy drawled.

Investigations was another department that was always called automatically when these fires started, so there were plenty of Maes's own people to begin the hunt for clues with no delays. They couldn't go inside until things cooled down, but while the fire marshals were directing the water wagons to try to achieve that, the investigators could at least look around the perimeter of the building.

Maes knew that the main search couldn't really start until daylight, and that was farther away this time than usual. So when he saw Police Chief Martin coming around a corner of the warehouse, he immediately approached him.

"Sorry we didn't catch this," the chief said soberly.

"Don't worry about it; you hardly had time to set up," Maes told him.

"Well, we did have patrols right around this block, so I'd have thought…but anyway," the man shrugged. "We haven't talked to all our people yet; we need to find the ones who are still somewhere in this crowd. Maybe someone saw something you can use."

"Meanwhile," Maes said, "can we station guards around the building to keep it untouched until morning? I have some guys to spare, and I wondered if we could make it a joint effort."

"Of course. I'll get right on it."

As the chief headed off to round up some officers, Maes directed a few of his own people to take up positions along the walls as well. He thought, fleetingly, of Ed and Al, and wished they were there to start looking for any signs of alchemy.

A young woman who had recently joined the Investigations team walked up to him. "I don't know if this means anything, sir," she said, "but I managed to get into one of the doors and found this caught on a loose board." She opened her hand and revealed a three-inch, sooty strip of braid, frayed at one end and singed at the other. He pulled her over to a nearby streetlight, and peered at it. Rubbing his thumb over the braid, he cleared away some of the soot. It might have been a yellowish colour, underneath.

"Good catch, sergeant," Maes nodded. "I'll have our guys look it over; it might tell us something." He pulled out a handkerchief, wrapped the clue inside, and slipped it into his pocket.

Then he returned to where Roy was standing to one side, out of the middle of the action. Havoc and Breda had joined him and Hawkeye, and the four of them were talking about the firefighting efforts. Or rather, Roy's subordinates were talking about it while he stood with them, arms folded and eyes half-closed as though his fatigue were about to fell him completely.

He seemed to be following the conversation, though, because as Maes approached, he roused himself to say, "Right, then. Havoc, Breda – go check on what Fuery and Falman are doing, and if the police and Investigations have everything in hand, go home and get a good night's sleep. You've worked hard enough tonight."

"I'm still fresh, boss, a lot fresher than you, from the look of things," Havoc chuckled. "I slept most of the day already. I was supposed to be spending the night at your place again, remember?"

"Well, now you're free, aren't you?" Roy smiled. "Call someone up and go see a movie or something."

Havoc and Breda left, and Maes took their place. "Well," he sighed, "we probably can't do much good here until the sun comes up. I suppose you should go home, Roy, and get some more sleep."

"I might just do – " Roy paused. Maes followed his gaze to the figure of the police chief returning, walking toward them with heavy steps, his face dark.

"Uh oh, this doesn't look good," Maes muttered, and stepped forward to meet him. "Chief. What's wrong? Have you found something?"

"It looks like it," the man answered grimly. "It looks like one of our patrolmen might have seen something after all."

"He saw the arsonist?" Maes said eagerly. "Can I talk to him?"

"He might have – but we'll never know. We found him just inside the building, in a hall near one of the doors. It looks like he'd gone into the building for some reason, and couldn't get out because the fire blocked his way. I'm sorry, Maes – he's dead."

"_No!"_

Maes whirled around at Roy's cry of horror, which matched the horror that exploded across his face. The man stared at the police chief, his face impossibly white, his mouth open in disbelief.

Maes stepped toward him. "Roy, are you – "

"It can't be!" Roy cried raggedly, fists clenched at his sides. "There can't have been anyone in there! He – he always picks empty buildings!"

"I wish it was a mistake," the chief said soberly. "But his hat was under his body, and was shielded from most of the fire. We recognized the crest."

"That's not – it can't be – " Roy shook his head, unable to accept what he was hearing. His whole body had begun to tremble, and Maes wondered if he was going to faint. "There – there can't – " Roy faltered. "It can't be true – there – _there's never anybody inside!_"

"Sir – please – " Hawkeye began, but as she reached for his arm he shrank away, eyes wild in his white face.

"Don't touch me – I can't – just don't – " He whirled around and tried to get away, but his legs appeared to give out on him and he fell to his hands and knees. And began to vomit, retching so violently it seemed he might choke up his bones.

"Dammit – Roy – " Heart pounding in alarm, Maes tried to go to his aid, but Hawkeye stepped into his path, arms spread open to keep him back.

"Hughes – just leave him for a minute – give him time – "

"He needs help!"

"I know, but – give him a chance – let him try to get himself together – please, Maes, just give him a minute!"

Maes stared at her face, pale and distressed, and the knot in his stomach tightened again, almost unbearably. He could hardly breathe. "How can you – Roy needs me," he rasped.

"You can't help him. Please – just finish up here, and then – then maybe you can do something. Please."

He met her eyes, and the fear inside was so tangible he felt as though he could start vomiting too. But he forced himself to turn back to the police chief.

He was hardly aware of what he did for the next few minutes, as he followed the chief to view the charred body of the police patrolman. He issued instructions to his forensics officers almost automatically, without conscious thought. In a very distant part of his mind, he was grateful that the people in Investigations were so professional that they would have known what to do no matter what he said. At least he managed to be coherent.

After he'd sent someone to the coroner's office, he left the chief to continue making his own arrangements, and found his steps leading him back to where Roy's men had formed a wall of protection to keep anyone from getting near. Behind the four men, Hawkeye had knelt to the left of her superior officer. Roy had finally sat up, head bowed, but Maes noted in that same distant part of his mind that the woman still didn't seem to have touched him. Did she not dare, for some reason, or was there another problem?

Havoc and Falman separated to let him through, their faces sober and a little frightened. Havoc whispered, "Maes, what happened to him? He seemed fine…"

Maes put a hand on his shoulder and merely shook his head. He walked toward the kneeling pair, his feet dragging as though made of lead. He stopped to Roy's right, and looked down.

"Roy," he said softly. "Let me help you. What can I do?"

After a long silence, Roy stirred. "What…?" he whispered vaguely, as though he hadn't really heard.

"Roy. Please let me take care of you. Tell me what's wrong."

Roy looked up, slowly, his face still deathly white, dark eyes flooded with a deep, encompassing grief. "Maes…?" he said. "I…can't…" Maes followed the shaky movement of his gloved hand and he lifted it to sweep the hair out of his eyes.

And then stood absolutely still, watching him. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing would come out. He looked beyond his friend, to find Hawkeye's unexpectedly sad eyes fixed on his face. They looked at each other for a long time until at last her shoulders slumped and she turned her face away.

Maes cleared his throat. "Take him home, Riza," he said quietly. "Keep him there, and don't let anyone into the house until I get there. All right?"

She looked up at him again. "All right," she nodded. With surprising gentleness, at last she set a hand on Roy's arm. "Come with me, Roy. We're going home."

He bowed his head, nodding wordlessly.

Maes turned back to the other four men, once again putting a hand on Havoc's shoulder and managing to smile at the group. "All right, everyone," he said. "Roy was right: you've done more than enough for tonight. I'm pulling rank on all of you and telling you to get home and get a good night's sleep, okay?"

"But sir," Fuery began to protest, looking past him to where Hawkeye had helped Roy to his feet and begun to lead him back toward the car they'd come in.

"But nothing," Maes said firmly. "After last night, this was too much for him. He's just overtaxed, that's all. So don't worry. Get some sleep, and we'll get everything figured out in the morning. All right?"

It took a little more persuading, but finally they did what he'd told them, and headed home. Havoc turned back for a moment, after the others had gone out of ear shot. "Maes," he murmured soberly. "It isn't really the flu. Is it?"

Maes closed his eyes. "No. It's not the flu."

He still had to consult with his Investigations squad, and make sure the building would be secure overnight. And he needed to have another word with the police chief, to tell him how sorry – how awfully, awfully sorry he was – about his dead officer. About everything.

But finally he'd fulfilled all his obligations, including getting someone to call Gracia for him, to tell her he wouldn't be home again tonight. When he'd done all he was required to do here, at last he climbed back into his car.

He sat there for a long moment, head bent, forehead pressed to the top of the steering wheel. "Oh, Roy," he whispered. Then, wiping his eyes, he started the car.

As expected, there were no guards outside, but as he stepped onto the porch, the door opened. Riza had obviously been watching for him.

He stepped into the doorway and asked, "Well? How is he?"

"A little better, but…" she shrugged. "He's in the kitchen. Come on."

But he took hold of her arm as she turned, stopping her from going further. "No, Riza," he said softly. "You go home now."

She wouldn't look at him. "I'm not leaving him," she shook her head firmly. "He needs me."

"Riza." Maes squeezed her arm to make her look at him. He watched her eyes widen as she recognized the resolve on his face. "This time," he told her, "you're not staying. There is no longer anything you can do."

"Maes – please – "

"No. It's out of your hands now. I mean it. This is not for you to deal with, not any more. Go home."

He had never thought to see such fear on her face. Finally, she truly understood why he was here. For a moment he thought she might refuse, might actually try to fight him on this. But at last she seemed to realize that this time, it would be no use.

"Maes," she whispered at last. "Please be kind to him."

He took her shoulders and brought her close, planting a kiss on her forehead. "I will, my dear."

After she'd gone, he leaned back against the closed door, staring down the long, dark hallway toward the light in the kitchen doorway. Again he wondered if he might be sick, but he didn't think he could get rid of the rock of dread in his stomach that way. He didn't know if he'd ever be rid of it.

It was probably the longest walk he'd ever taken in his life. He moved slowly down the hall toward the light, limbs trembling, and finally came to the kitchen entrance. He paused in the opening, looking at the still, silent figure sitting at the table, an opened bottle of scotch and two filled glasses already prepared. He and Roy looked at each other without a word, for a long time.

_I'm sorry, Ed,_ Maes thought. Then he stepped over to the table and, digging in his pocket, pulled out the soot-covered chunk of braid, unwrapped it, and dropped it beside the bottle.

Roy pushed a glass across the table to him, reaching with his right hand, the ripped braid on the front of his uniform jacket dangling under his arm as it moved.

"Took you long enough," he muttered.


	14. A tale of trauma

Maes stood looking down across the table at Roy for a long, long time. Roy, meanwhile, sat quietly waiting, saying nothing, gazing into the amber liquid in the glass cradled between his hands. His still-gloved hands.

Maes could hear the tick-tock of the grandfather clock in the hallway, and the occasional creak as the house settled for the night. The darkness outside continued to deepen as the evening progressed toward midnight. A far contrast from the brilliantly lit clouds above the warehouse just an hour or two ago, making the streets almost as bright as day.

The warehouse where almost everything Maes believed in, in the world, had been burned to a lifeless crisp.

Roy stirred at last, glancing up again. "Are you going to sit down?"

"I – " Maes began hoarsely, and swallowed. "I…don't know what I'm going to do, actually."

The merest uplift of the lips. "I suppose I should ask the same question you asked me last night. Do you have your gun with you?"

Maes's breath caught sharply. For a reeling instant, he thought his knees might give out. "Do you think I've come here to… Is that what you… " He took a gasping breath. "Is that what you _want?_"

Roy closed his eyes. "Maes. Sit down. Please."

Maes lowered himself, gingerly, onto the chair nearest the other glass of scotch. He reached for the glass, but pulled his hand back when he saw how it trembled. If he'd tried to lift the thing right now, he would have spilled the liquid all over the table. And he had a feeling he was going to need every drop, and more, before they were done here.

The main thing, he thought desperately, was not to cry.

"Roy," he managed, finally, to whisper. "What's going on? What's happened to you? _Why are you doing this terrible thing?_"

Roy took a deep breath. And a large gulp of his drink. "I – I don't really know, Maes."

"You don't know? _You've burned down ten buildings and you don't know why?_" Maes clenched his fists on the table, possibly to keep himself from leaping over it and beating his companion to a pulp. "And I'm supposed to sit here and listen to garbage like that and _believe you?_ You're nuts, Roy. You're crazy if you think I'm going to do that."

Another sip. "You're right," was the only reply.

Maes hardly heard him, having finally opened the door to let things start flooding out. "You watched me – you watched all of us – agonizing over this thing, hunting for clues, even taking all the measures we could to _keep you safe!_ And then you'd set another building on fire and watch us frantically running around trying to keep the fire from spreading, keep people safe, even keep the people in the city from panicking because there was some pyro out there threatening the whole place. And then you'd swoop in like the big hero, and save the day, knowing all the while what was really going on. Is that what you've been after, Roy?" Maes growled. "Life after war get too boring for you? You need the hero-worship that badly?"

"No, that's not what I – "

"And the whole time – the whole time we've been trying to protect you, driving ourselves crazy trying to figure out who's threatening you – it's _you_. You're the guy who's doing everything. You must have had a lot of laughs, watching us half kill ourselves for you."

"Maes, no! God, no, it's not like that at all." Roy pressed a hand over his eyes – and there was that braid again, hanging under his arm, drawing Maes's gaze almost against his will. He stared at it helplessly for a few seconds before he realized that his friend was weeping.

"Oh Roy…," he said weakly, his own tears drawing near the surface again. "I just…don't…"

Roy lowered his hand and looked at him, revealing brimming eyes, drowning in sadness. "Can you let me explain?" he asked, his voice cracking. "Please, Maes, you can hate me all you want, but just – just let me tell you what's been happening. I've tried to stop it – tried to fight it for so long – I just need to tell you, so somebody will _know_. Somebody," he bowed his head, "aside from Zolf Kimbley."

Kimbley. He'd given them everything they'd needed to figure this out, hadn't he? He'd known right away. But Maes…he'd been so utterly, utterly blind, when the clues had been right in front of him almost from the beginning. And Roy had known he would be. He'd known how easy it would be to deceive the friend who cared so much for him…

He reached for the glass and took a quick, burning gulp. "All right, Roy," he rasped, his voice harsh. "Tell me what's really been happening, all this time. And as to hating you…I…I just…"

"Never mind. I deserve it." Roy gave a small, mirthless laugh.

"Just tell me why you did this. Help me understand why a guy I thought I knew…" Maes couldn't go on. He wasn't sure he could keep from breaking down if he did.

Roy glanced at him again, a look full of pain. "You do know me…you did. As well as I knew myself. But that's the problem, Maes…I don't know myself any more." He cupped his hands around the glass again. "You...you can't imagine what it feels like. When it starts building, in the back of my head, and I can't stop it, and it gets stronger and stronger until I can't do anything – can't think of anything else – when it gets so strong I feel like I'm go crazy if I don't – don't – "

"Don't what?" Maes demanded. "Find some piece of property to torch so you can look like a hero?"

Roy's breath caught with a little gasp and he covered his face with a hand. "That's not what this is about!" he cried raggedly. "Do you think I care about something as stupid as that? When this – this thing inside my head is eating me alive like it is? Do you have any idea how much I'd give for this monster to go away and get out of my head and _give me some peace?_"

Maes watched in horrified silence. He was so far out of his league right now, he was absolutely floundering.

"It takes a few days," Roy whispered, yet again curling his hands around the glass as though it were some sort of lifeline. "It builds up slowly, until the last few days get harder and harder to take. I – I can resist it at first, when it starts to build again. And then it gets harder and harder – I start trying not to fall asleep because I know that's when it takes hold the easiest. I fight it – and fight it – and get more and more exhausted while it gets stronger and stronger – and then one night it just takes over and I can't stop it."

"And…then what happens?" Maes asked.

"Then it's like…like I'm dreaming. In fact, the first time it happened, not long after we got back from Ishbal the last time, I thought it _was_ a dream. I'd been having such nightmares, the whole time we were there. I started dreaming about…burning…about destroying those cities. It all came back, and I couldn't stop it. It was just…I couldn't stand it, Maes. I couldn't handle living it all over again. I thought I'd escaped it, and now it was all coming back. I – I didn't know how I could face it again. All that destruction…all that blood…all those people…" Roy's hands shook as he took another drink.

"I remember how it was right after Ishbal, the first time, after the war," Maes said slowly. "I never knew from one day to the next if I was going to come to your place and find you…but…but you never did this, Roy. You never did anything like this. Not even then."

"You talk like I just _decided_ to do this," Roy accused. "But I didn't – I swear it! That first time, I didn't even _know_ I was doing it. I thought it was a dream."

"How am I supposed to believe that?"

"Because this is _me_!" Roy cried, slapping a hand on his chest. The braid quivering under the bend of his arm. "I'm trying to tell you the truth."

"Are you? You've been lying and lying for months. I told you – I thought I knew you, but this – this – " Maes took another drink. He didn't think he'd ever been so miserable in his life, or ever felt so betrayed.

"Maes – please – don't you understand yet? It's like this – this _compulsion_ takes over, and I can't resist it, I can't control it, I can't stop it. That first time, I was dreaming again, about the fires in Ishbal, but this time it was like my mind had had enough. It took me back to when the fire – when my flame alchemy – was beautiful. Pure. I – I was standing alone, and I snapped my fingers, and there was nothing there but my beautiful flame. It was the same as it was when I first mastered it – bright and powerful and beautiful – " Roy lifted his hand and cupped it, staring at it as though seeing the flames dancing on his palm. "You just – just can't imagine how soothing it was. How peaceful."

"Peaceful. While it was burning a whole building down."

Roy's hand clenched and he laid it on the table, grimacing in distress. "I know. I woke up…sort of came to myself…and found myself walking away from a warehouse that was blazing behind me. You…you can't begin to imagine how I felt then, realizing that it hadn't been a dream after all."

Maes remembered that one, the first one. He hadn't been there, but he'd heard about how the fire looked like it was going to go out of control and leap from one roof to another, and maybe set a whole district on fire – and then Roy had appeared out of nowhere and put the fire out. And been praised so highly for it.

"Right," he said bitterly. "You were pretty upset all right. The whole city thought you were a hero, and you didn't say one word about what had really happened. Not. One. Word. Not even to me."

"How could I? I hardly understood it myself. And I…I was afraid. I didn't know what had happened to me, and I didn't know what might happen if I told anyone. When I realized that the building was empty, and no one had been hurt, I decided I'd keep my mouth shut. I…I thought it was done. I thought it wouldn't happen again. The day after this happens, it's like I'm…I don't know, it's like I'm free somehow. I feel so…purged. Empty. Light. As though I might never have another nightmare again. I really thought I'd gotten it out of my system, and everything would be fine. But then…a few days later, it started building again. And then I – I was simply terrified."

"And you still didn't tell me!"

"I hoped I could fight it this time. Now that I knew how it worked, I really thought I could. I kept thinking that. And then when I realized that I really couldn't, there had been so many buildings that I knew I'd completely ruin my career and my life if I started telling anyone about it. So I went to Xing."

Mr. Ian Woon. So that was what that had been about. "That Woon guy. You hoped he'd teach you how to control it," Maes said.

Roy nodded. "He taught me the meditation techniques. We didn't have enough time, because I only had so much leave, and the travel time was part of it. But he gave me as much as he could in a couple of weeks. And Maes – I thought it worked. I didn't start a fire the whole month I was away. And when I got back, I still felt the peace. I thought it had worked."

Maes thought back. That day he'd walked into the house and found Roy trying to meditate. So uncharacteristic of him. And then he'd started the fire in the fireplace when it wasn't really necessary…

Another gulp of the burning liquid. "Until it didn't work."

"I was so depressed when I felt it coming back. It's been a – a nightmare I just couldn't get out of."

Despite himself – despite the fact that he wanted to be angry and betrayed, and yell and throw something – Maes found himself beginning to understand, as much as it was possible to understand, anyway. The thought of Roy suffering this strange compulsion, fighting it for days on end in silence and alone, tore at his heart. If only he'd said something, told someone! If only Maes had had a chance to help him before it came to this! If only –

"Except." He suddenly remembered. "You're talking like you had no control over this, but you _did_, Roy." He pointed an accusing finger across the table, his moment of empathy dissipating again. "You picked _empty buildings_ to burn. You can't tell me that that was just a lucky coincidence every single time." Except tonight, he thought with a pang of grief. This one wasn't empty, was it?

"No," Roy muttered, "it wasn't a coincidence. I did have that much control, at least. Once I knew I wasn't dreaming, even when I felt like I was being dragged out of bed against my will, I could at least direct where I did it, even if I couldn't stop it."

"Direct it," Maes growled, "you made a game of it. What about the spiral, Roy? What was that all about?"

For the first time in several minutes, Roy looked him in the face, the surprise on his own face completely genuine. "I don't know," he said. "I didn't even know I was doing it until you showed us the pattern. I couldn't believe it. I – I truly have no idea what I was doing, making a spiral."

"I know what you were doing," Maes pronounced. "You knew you should have told me right when it all started, but you hadn't done that. So you were trying to show me in another way. You were pointing to yourself, and hoping I'd see it."

Roy considered this, swirling the remaining dregs of the scotch around in his glass. He grabbed the bottle and poured more in. "Maybe I was, at that," he murmured.

"And of course I was too stupid to see it. I was stupid, because I believed everything you said. You kept deflecting me away – you had all the answers to everything, the way you always, always do. All your reasons for not wanting a guard – they were so plausible, and I thought you meant them, I thought you were being courageous, hoping to draw out the arsonist at the risk of your own safety. When what was really going on," Maes's voice rose in volume and passion almost of is own accord, "was that you just wanted us out of your way so we couldn't stop you the next time you set a big fire!"

"Of course I did, dammit!" Roy slammed his fist on the table and the bottle and glasses jumped, clinking. "You saw what happened to me last night – don't you get what you were seeing? Of course it wasn't the flu – it was _me_, when this compulsion comes over me and I have to get out there and make a fire or I'll go out of my mind. And there were people everywhere, and I couldn't get away, I couldn't get out! I had to get rid of the guards. I had to, or by tonight I'd have been screaming on the bathroom floor and probably slitting my wrists with the razor like you thought I would. Why – why do you suppose I didn't take my gloves into the bathroom with me last night, Maes? I knew I'd end up burning my own house down, and probably killing Havoc and Fuery and the outside guards too!"

Maes stared at him. So that…_that_…was what Roy was like if he couldn't follow this irresistible urge and set something on fire? _That_ was what he'd been reduced to?

The important thing, he reminded himself, was not to cry.

"Oh Roy," he whispered. "Why – _why_ didn't you tell me about this?"

Roy's hands opened helplessly, lying on the table. "How would you ever have understood?"

"I don't know. But I'd have tried to help you. We could have talked to somebody – gotten you some help – "

"Sure you could," Roy's voice sharpened. "The same sort of help Zolf has gotten." At the expression on Maes's face, he barked a bitter laugh. "Don't tell me you believe I wouldn't get exactly the same treatment. They're always looking for a reason to take me down and get rid of me. Wouldn't they just love to have me sitting in a room like his – with my hands stuck in the stocks so I couldn't burn them to a crisp when they came into the room to watch while I went completely insane right in front of them –"

"Roy, stop. They wouldn't do that to you. I'd never let that happen."

"They'd do as they please, and you wouldn't be able to do a thing about it," Roy answered darkly. He raised the glass again, and Maes saw it shake as he drank, eyes closed.

"Zolf Kimbley…why did you want to go with us when we talked to him?"

For a quick moment, a ghost of Roy's mocking smile flashed across his face. "I thought that would be obvious. I knew he'd figure it out as soon as you said anything. I was hoping I could keep him from telling you what was really going on."

Deceitful and subversive till the last, Maes thought sadly. "But instead you got more than you bargained for."

The faint trace of the smile vanished, and Roy sighed, shoulders slumping. "I didn't expect…but I learned…I realized that there was no hope. There was nothing I could do, no matter how I tried to fight this. I sent Ed away because I could tell he was starting to figure it out too, but – "

"He didn't want it to be you, Roy. He really wanted it to be Kimbley."

"I know. He's such a great kid. I wish…" Another gulp of scotch. "But he knows. Zolf knows. And…Riza. I think she's suspected almost from the beginning." Roy managed a twisted, painful smile. "She was like Ed – she really wanted your explanation to be true. She really wanted it to be someone who had seen the array on her back and learned the alchemy so he could take revenge on me. But I just…I couldn't let her take that responsibility. None of this was her fault, in any way. None of it. It's all me." He focused his gaze on his friend's face, the pain screaming from his eyes. "It's my fault…and I can't stop. There's nothing I can do. Maes…I'm so sorry."

"There has to be _something_ we can do. You've been through so much – overcome so much – " Maes had to stop, swallowing around the lump in his throat.

Roy looked down at his hands, now lying on either side of the glass of scotch. "When this…need…started showing up, it was like my mind built some kind of protection inside, to get me away from the memories of…everything before. It started reminding me why I had wanted to study flame alchemy in the first place. There was power in the flames, but it wasn't just the power…it was…"

"It was because you loved fire," Maes suggested softly, thinking of the rapt expression on his friend's face this evening, shaping the flames into things of supreme beauty across the sky.

Roy nodded. "It always fascinated me. I wasn't obsessed by it, but I thought it was beautiful. And the thought of being able to control it, of having the power of fire in my own hands…that's why I studied it. And the last few months, no matter how bad I felt when I was remembering all the horror in Ishbal – these other feelings would come, to remind me that the fire was beautiful. It was… Maes, it was beautiful. It was magical."

Maes watched his friend's face begin to change, and the knot in his stomach tightened again. Roy's eyes lost their tension, lost their focus, as his thoughts turned again to the beauty of the flames. "I started feeling like…like everything would be better…all the terrible memories and thoughts would go away…it would stop hurting…if I could just…just…"

Maes licked his lips and finished softly, "If you could just start a fire."

Roy's eyes focused on his face. "You…you just don't know what it feels like. Maes…it's the most beautiful thing in the world. To hold that flame in your hands…to control it…to shape it with the flicker of a finger…to hold it close…to caress it…"

And then he smiled. Maes wanted to slap his hands on his neck, to keep the hair from standing up, as Roy's lips curved into the smile of a lover, the smile with which one might greet the angels sent to convey one's soul to paradise.

"Roy…stop…"

"It's so gentle…it flows so beautifully…" Roy cupped his hands together in front of him, gazing into them again as though the flames flickered on his palms. His fingers trembled. His lips trembled. "So beautiful…," he breathed.

"Roy!" Maes broke sharply into his thoughts. "Take off your gloves."

"What?" Roy's startled eyes darted to his face. "What are you talking about?"

"Take your gloves off. _Now._ Do you hear me?" Maes shoved his chair back and stood up, pulling his gun out of its holster and flipping off the safety. "If you don't get those gloves off right now, I'll – I might have to – "

Roy stared at him in confusion, until his eyes focused on the half-raised gun, and the meaning of both the gesture and the words finally hit him. He gasped, leaping out of his own chair and backing away until he ran into the counter beside the sink. "Maes – how can you – "

"I don't want to do anything, Roy. Just take the gloves off, and we can keep talking."

Roy pressed his hands over his heart, as though cradling the gloves, protecting them. "I wasn't doing anything," he began, but Maes interrupted.

"I saw you. You were slipping away right in front of me. Everything will be fine if you just _take the gloves off_. Please, Roy. Please."

For a moment longer, he thought he might have to do something drastic. Roy leaned trembling against the counter, one hand clutching the edge of it as he pressed the heel of the other against his eyes, fingers burrowed into his hair, clutching like claws, the end of the loosened braid swinging just past his waist. When at last he looked up again, the tears had welled up once more in his dark eyes, rolling slowly down his cheeks. Maes could hardly bear the despair on his friend's face.

"I'm sorry. I – I – I need help. Maes – help me."

"I don't know how to help you any more, Roy." And now it seemed that Maes, too, had forgotten the most important thing, and had also begun to weep. "If it were just the buildings – if that was all – I could lie and somehow help you get away – back to Xing, maybe, so Mr. Woon might finally heal you. But Roy – it's not just the buildings any more." He took a ragged breath. "That police officer – you killed him. I know you didn't intend to, but he's dead anyway."

Roy bowed his head. "I know."

"And that – that changed everything. You know that, don't you? Now it's not just some empty buildings. Now it's murder."

Just yesterday morning, he had wondered if there was anything in the world that he wouldn't do for Roy. And now, to his great grief, he had discovered what it was.

Again Roy pressed the hand to his eyes. "I know," he whispered again.

"I'll try my best to make sure that they don't treat you like Kimbley – I'll fight till my last breath to make sure – but I can't just let you go, not after tonight. If you had just told me, after the first time – but you didn't. You let it keep happening until finally someone died, and now I have no choice. I have to arrest you, and take you in. So I'm asking again – please, buddy – take off the gloves before you hurt someone else."

Roy looked at him again, just looked at him, eye to eye, almost soul to soul, for a very long moment. Maes wanted to burst into sobs, but he gritted his teeth and didn't let it happen. Despite what he had to do tonight, Roy needed him to be strong and keep himself together. And he was going to take care of his friend, get him the help he needed, if it was the last thing he did.

Finally, Roy actually managed to smile a little, despite the pain and the tears. "This is why you're the real hero, Maes," he murmured. "This is why I've needed you, all these years. You're a hero for having kept me sane as long as you did. But you never did anything to deserve this mess. I…I guess it's time I lifted the burden off your shoulders…" He began to tug at the fingers of the left glove, loosening it.

Maes sighed with heavy relief and started to lower the gun. "You know that's not what I want," he began, but got no further.

Roy's right hand rose as he whispered, "Goodbye, Maes," and then there was the unmistakable snapping sound, a rush of pressure, and a long fall into darkness.


	15. The Last Fire

The alarm bells seemed to be coming from everywhere. He struggled up from the thick, fuzzy blackness, slowly, his arm reaching out in a vague search for the alarm clock. It was only when he felt the hard surface beneath him, and began to push himself away from it, that he realized it wasn't the clock making the noise.

He gasped for breath, for some reason needing the extra air. "Gracia…get the phone…," he managed, labouriously shoving himself up onto his hands and knees. It took about three tries, with shaky hands, before he could straighten his crooked glasses on the bridge of his nose.

And then he remembered.

Maes sat back on his haunches, slapping his hands to his face and frantically feeling his cheeks, his hair, down the front of his shirt. Nothing burned. Everything intact. So Roy hadn't burned him. What, then?

He took another gasping breath, automatically turning his head toward the cool breeze blowing across the kitchen. As he saw the wide open window, he understood: Roy had altered the composition of the air somehow, probably cutting off the oxygen, just long enough to knock him out and leave him sleeping.

Until the infernal racket woke him up. He struggled to his feet, staggering toward the phone. "H-Hughes h-here," he gasped.

"Hughes? What are you doing th – never mind."

It was Havoc, sounding almost as groggy as Maes felt. He leaned back and tried to focus on the grandfather clock. It was 4:30 a.m. – he had to have been out for about four hours. But Havoc was speaking again. He had to concentrate.

"Look, is Roy there? I hate to bother him again tonight, but there's another fire."

"He – he's not here," Maes faltered. He took another deep breath to try to clear his head further.

"Damn. We might not even need him – it's getting hard to tell an ordinary accidental fire from one of the arsonist's jobs – but I thought I'd better call. Where is he? Is he with Riza? I called her, but she's not answering."

Maes blinked and forced himself to think. "I don't know where either of them are, but I'll come anyway. Roy might even hear about it himself, and come to help," he added, maintaining the fiction for a little longer. The thought of telling Havoc what had really happened made him quail. "Tell me where to go, and I'll get there."

After Havoc gave him the address, he hung up the phone and pressed his forehead to the wall beside it.

Roy.

Another fire, and not very far away from here either. Another truncation of the spiral. And after Roy had knocked him out to get away.

His face had looked – staring into his palms, entranced just by the thought of fire – his face had looked –

Maes could hardly bear to contemplate the possibilities. Fighting down a surge of grief, he gathered his strength and ran as quickly as he could down the hall. But he jerked to a halt with a sharp gasp as he recognized someone in uniform, lying on their face on the sidewalk at the bottom of the porch.

Riza Hawkeye.

"Roy – Roy, what have you done?" he whispered, leaping off the porch and kneeling beside the fallen woman. He rolled her over, feeling for a pulse on the side of her neck, his own heart racing in fear.

But she was alive, and breathing. And when her eyes finally flew open, and she sat up with a gasp, his arm around her shoulders to steady her, she began looking around, her agitation rising. "Roy! Where is he? He was just here – he came out and when I tried to find out where he was going, he just said he was sorry, and then – " she frowned, trying to remember. "I think he knocked me out or something."

"He did," Maes nodded. "And he wasn't 'just here' – he took off at least four hours ago. In fact…Riza…," he said, his throat constricting, "I think he's started another fire."

Another terrible grief tonight – the look on Riza's face as she absorbed the news. She knew as well as he did what this probably meant. The painful side effect of knowing Roy as well as they did.

They took Maes's car, and drove mostly in tense silence, especially when they turned onto a main street and could see the bright, flickering glow casting an angry red light in the area several blocks down.

As she stared at the nearing light with bleak eyes, Riza murmured, "When he came outside, I thought I could stop him. I've always been able to talk him out of things if I had to. I never thought he'd ever…and…he was crying…" She stopped herself, biting her lip.

Maes wasn't the only one who was losing something precious tonight. He swallowed hard, and asked, not looking at her, "How long have you known?"

"I started wondering, even before he went to Xing. I hoped I was wrong. I hoped…" She pressed a hand over her eyes, and shook her head, unable to speak further.

This building was rather different from the others, and Maes could see immediately why Havoc wasn't sure whether this was arson or an accidental fire. This one was smaller, another two-storey building that only took up a quarter of the block. It wasn't even a warehouse, but likely a small block of offices. And somehow, just standing looking at it, Maes could tell that this would be an easier fire to put out: the water wagons would be adequate for the job, probably not even needing the bucket brigades, though they were already here.

So. A fire that would not need Roy, to put it out.

That should have been encouraging – it should have meant that this was just an accident, a regular fire. But as Maes met Riza's uneasy eyes, a heavy dread settled into the pit of his stomach.

Neither of them took part in the firefighting activities this time. Despite being fatigued from their earlier similar exercise tonight, the city firefighters had things well in hand. The bucket brigade took care of any small hot spots caused by floating debris outside (it really did seem to be an office; there was a lot of singed paper wafting through the air on the hot updrafts), and the water wagons came swiftly enough to put out the fire inside the building fairly quickly.

Not long after Maes and Riza arrived, Havoc joined them, and all three stood across the street, watching in silence. The city workers were soon soaking down the outside of the building just to make sure nothing flared up again, while a few firefighters concentrated on a last persistent fire – someone said it was around the boiler room – that was taking a little longer to die down.

Maes realized after a few minutes that he had his arm around Riza's shoulders again. She stood shivering beside him and barely seemed to notice, her attention fixed on the burning building. The only time any of them spoke was when Havoc met Maes's eyes and said softly, "Roy's not coming. Is he?" But Maes couldn't bring himself to answer.

When everything was over, and torches and lamps had been set up (though the sky was beginning to lighten above the buildings in the block to the east of this one), Maes assigned two of his Investigations people to work with the fire department, but told them to let the fire and police officials take the lead this time. Again he saw Havoc glance at him, eyes narrowing in speculation.

Then, when his investigators went back to the building to begin their work, Maes saw Police Chief Martin coming across the street, once again frowning grimly, and he knew that the moment he'd dreaded had finally come. His arm tightened instinctively around Riza's shoulders. She already stood rigid at his side, eyes bruised, watching the man come toward them like an angel of doom.

The three of them followed him into the building, bypassing the stairs that had burned away, climbing instead down one of the firefighting ladders into the boiler room. The fire had clearly been fiercest in this spot. Two firefighters stood by with a couple of lamps that turned the extremely humid air almost white as the light diffused through it. Part of the floor above had fallen in, the wood now lying in soggy, steaming piles as moisture dripped from the jagged beams that remained above.

Because of the low mounds of wood and the clumped piles of soaked paper, it took a moment before they saw the body. And then it was all they saw.

Charred almost beyond recognition, it lay face down on the cement beside the burst boiler. The face was mercifully turned away, wisps of what might have been black hair visible here and there on the head, the remnants of clothing hardly more than papery layers spread over the skeleton. Yet the figure wore leather boots that were still recognizable: military-issue. And from the shape and spread of the papery remains of cloth, it was clear that the dead man had been wearing a military uniform.

Chief Martin knelt near the head and shoulders and pointed wordlessly to the left hand, curled on the floor near the back of the person's neck. Somehow it had been protected from most of the fire, and they could see the glove, now lightly browned but once clearly white. And on the back of the glove, in a much darker shade of brown, the colour of dried blood, the clear tracing of the array for flame alchemy.

Riza fell to her knees and began to sob uncontrollably, brokenly. Maes reached out in his blind grief and found Havoc already reaching for him. The two men leaned against each other and wept.

Major Vanova had taken some persuading, but she wasn't as unsympathetic as Maes had expected. When she realized that his official story was going to be that the arsonist had finally attained his ultimate goal – trapping Colonel Roy Mustang in a building and killing him there with fire, his own weapon – she came to Maes's office to ask what he was doing.

"We both know that that wasn't what happened," she'd said quietly, after closing his office door so no one else would hear. "And we both know who was really setting the fires. Don't we, Maes?"

Maes's response had been abrupt and harsh. "The man is dead," he had barked, green eyes hard as emeralds as he focused them on her face. "It's over. Do you really want to destroy the final reputation of a very sick man – a man who was a hero to half the population, and became so sick because of his role in serving his country? There was no way we could have helped him. You must know that, after all your work with Kimbley. Can we not at least do this one last thing for him? Leave him with some dignity, some shred of reputation?"

There had been much more discussion than that, of course. But in the end, she had agreed not to contradict his official version of the story. And she had paused at his door, eyes sad behind her round glasses, and told him, "I grieve for him too, Maes, and what was done to him in Ishbal. I'm so sorry you've lost such a good friend. I'm sure you'll never want to talk to me about how you're feeling, but be sure you have someone else to talk to, to help you get through this. And find help for Mustang's other friends."

The next day, Investigations officially announced that while they would diligently continue seeking clues to the arsonist's identity, it was very likely that the fires had stopped for good and that he had departed the city, now that he had achieved his goal.

Two days after the fire, Maes sat in his office, going through the motions, helping to make arrangements for the funeral. He had asked to be in charge of organizing the event, and asked for Mustang's people to be assigned to him for this task. It was all that kept them going, through that first period of shock. He wondered what would happen to them the day after the funeral.

Riza had already announced, stiffly, her eyes dull, that she would be resigning from the military. Most of the others weren't entirely sure why, since she'd always seemed such a devoted military person, and the possibility of the colonel's death had always existed. But Havoc watched mostly in silence for the first day, and then had cornered Maes, telling him they were going to have a long talk after the funeral was over. It seemed that he, too, would have to be told exactly what had happened to Roy. He had probably already guessed.

Kain Fuery was almost inconsolable, and Havoc was trying to help him; it was likely one of the things helping Havoc himself to make it through these terrible few days. Breda had had a couple of good bouts of drinking himself through the evenings, while Falman faced his grief in his usual stoic fashion. Maes knew that Breda was actually more controlled than he looked, keeping watch on how far he went, and wasn't likely to maintain the heavy drinking for much longer.

Maes himself, on the other hand, knew he would have fallen apart completely if Gracia hadn't kept him standing. But he still spent enough time, over the two days after the fire, bawling on her shoulder whenever Elysia was in bed.

This was what Roy had meant, wasn't it, when they'd talked a bit, after the visit to Kimbley? What had he said? _Think of Gracia and Elysia instead of me. There's nobody in this world more sane than you, and you're going to be fine, no matter how this turns out. That's the one thing that helps me, while all this is happening – knowing that in the end, you've got them, and they're going to make it all right for you._

And he'd been right. Every moment Maes spent with his wife and daughter, he silently thanked them for their love, and for their very existence. He hugged and held both of them even more than he had before, if that was possible. But he couldn't quite bear to take pictures. Not just yet.

Roy had known, even then, how this was likely to end. How many more reasons, Maes wondered, would he discover, to make him cry for his friend?

Roy's funeral was in two more days. Maes just had to hold everyone together until then. And then…well, he'd try to hold them together a little longer, he supposed. Vanova had been right about that. Somehow, he felt it was his job to find a way to help them get to the other side of this tragedy. It was one of the last things he could do for Roy, and he knew his friend had counted on him for this.

But there was another of Mustang's people whose reaction he still hadn't encountered. Just before he left to go home for a late lunch on the second day, he looked up to find Edward Elric standing in his office doorway, face drawn with exhaustion, gold hair fraying out of his braid, bright eyes alive with grief and pain.

"You didn't wait," the young man rasped. "_Why didn't you wait for me?_"

Maes grabbed his coat, grabbed Ed's arm, and almost dragged the kid home with him, where he discovered that Alphonse was already visiting and had gotten the news. Elysia was still up after her lunch, so they had to maintain some semblance of cheerfulness for her, and postpone the discussion.

But the moment Gracia picked up the little girl, cradling Elysia's sagging head against her shoulder as she took her upstairs, Ed turned back to Maes and demanded raggedly, "What happened to him, Hughes? Your people told me when I got into the office that he was – was – but I know it wasn't some arsonist who got him. There's only one way he could end up – there. Where he… Hughes! _What happened to him?_"

"This is really terrible, Hughes," Al said. "I didn't know Colonel Mustang was in such trouble."

Maes sighed and made the brothers sit down, while he pulled up a stool in front of the couch and sat before them, to tell them the tale of Roy's final two days. It had grown a bit cool in the house, since it was rather overcast and rainy outside, but he shuddered at the very thought of starting a fire in the fireplace. He hadn't been able to bear having a fire there ever since…

He tried to tell Ed and Al what happened as concisely and emotionlessly as possible, just reciting the facts, but of course it was impossible for him. He already had tears in his eyes when he described the hours with his friend in the bathroom, described how the compulsion Roy couldn't fulfill drove him half mad. Gracia, returning from Elysia's room, came up behind him and stood with comforting hands on his shoulders, but there was no comfort to ease the pain of this story.

By the time he told the brothers about that last night – that last confrontation, where Roy had finally explained the nightmare he'd been living – the tears had begun to roll down Maes's cheeks. Again. He felt like he'd been crying for two solid days.

"I think," he said, staring through the blur at the hands twisting together in the space between his knees, "I knew as soon as I woke up that he was going to do…what he did."

"You should have waited for me," Ed whispered. By now he was hunched over, elbows on his knees, both hands burrowed in his hair.

"How would that have helped, Ed?" Maes asked softly. As Ed lifted his head to look at him incredulously, he went on, "What could you have done? Would you have killed him? Or if you managed to defeat him without that, would you really have wanted to see him in prison, treated like Kimbley and going insane because he couldn't fulfill the urge when it came over him? Ed – that would have been sheer torture. I don't think you'd want to send him to that. And I really don't think you'd want to be the one to kill him."

"I – I could have done _something_. There must've been something I…could've…" Ed clenched his fists on his knees, gulping noisily as he tried to swallow a sob. Looming at his side, Alphonse visibly drooped.

"I've really been thinking about it, the last two days," Maes went on. "And I don't think you could've done anything, Ed. I sure couldn't help him. Riza couldn't. Even though we've always been the ones…" He grimaced. "I hate to say this, but...Roy was probably right when he told me there was no hope to fix this. He…he may have made the only right choice there was."

"The only right choice! To kill himself? To do it – do it like _that?_" Ed's control was quickly crumbling.

"Well, you know Roy," Maes managed a bitter smile through his tears, "he did like the drama. And – and he made it so I could save his reputation, if I wanted to. I think – I think he was asking one last favour of me. Another favour that he's ducked out of repaying, the stupid jerk." He tried to laugh, but it came out as a sort of hiccup, and he buried his face in his hands.

The brothers stayed for the afternoon and then, when Elysia woke up and wanted to play with them, they stayed for dinner as well. Again they tried to behave more cheerfully, for her benefit, but when it was finally her bedtime, the mood sobered again. Maes really didn't want them to leave; somehow it was a comfort to be able to talk to more people who knew the whole story. It had been hard, the last couple of days, talking to Gracia about what had really happened, but then having to go to the office and maintain the other story in public. He'd managed a few moments now and then with Riza, but she wasn't in a talkative mood about anything.

It was a long evening, trying to console the brothers, when Maes could still barely manage his own grief. Al had never had the same antagonistic relationship with Roy that Ed had, so in a way his sadness was more 'pure', not so tinged with guilt. Ed, on the other hand, was sure he should have guessed the truth sooner, and maybe somehow he could have helped save his superior officer. He seemed to be discovering – too late – how much he had secretly admired the man, and wished for his approval.

It was going to take a long time, Maes thought forlornly, before any of them recovered from this. They'd have to stick together – all of them, Roy's people, Riza, these kids, him and Gracia – they'd have to help each other for a good long while.

And they'd all have to know, he decided. Sometime after the funeral was over, he'd bring them all here, and the three who didn't know all the facts yet – Fuery, Falman, and Breda – and Havoc, if he still hadn't put it all together – would have to be told. Roy's loyal followers and friends deserved the truth about him, even if no one else could be allowed to find out.

Rather than allow the brothers to go home in their current state of grief, Gracia insisted on making up beds for them in the spare room. When Maes suggested that Ed follow his own lead and have some warm milk to help him get to sleep, he endured a mild explosion (quiet enough, at least, that it didn't wake Elysia), and discovered for the first time exactly what Ed's opinion was of milk. Somehow this led to a bit of laughter, even if it soon dissolved into tears. As Gracia finished spreading out the last blanket, Maes pulled Ed into his arms and just held him for a while, letting him cry. It was a measure of the young man's genuine grief that he allowed himself to be held.

When morning came, Elysia gleefully discovered that "her" two favourite visitors were still there, so breakfast was loud and entertaining, and they managed to laugh a little more. They sobered right down again, of course, when the boys left with Maes to go to the office.

The next two days were mercifully busy, with all of Mustang's people (now including the Elrics) running errands, making arrangements, coordinating with the city, and so on. Officials of the city decided they wanted to honour Roy by shutting down some main roads and having his coffin taken along the route in an open carriage, so as many people as possible could bid farewell to the man they perceived as a hero for his recent actions concerning the fires.

While in the midst of a discussion with these officials in the central planning room, Maes glanced up to find Vanova giving him a wry smile across the room, from where she was helping to make other arrangements. He had to blink back tears and look away; empathy from any source was enough to make him let loose right now.

At last the day arrived, clear and bright, and the coffin containing Roy's body was lifted into the ceremonial military carriage, and a funeral began which was normally reserved only for the highest officials in the country. All of Roy's people, smart and polished in dress uniform, walked as an honour guard, three on either side of the carriage. Even Ed had donned his military uniform today, possibly for the first time. Maes and Alphonse, as close friends, had been given special dispensation to join him walking behind the carriage to complete the honour guard.

The procession was a massive affair, with townspeople lining the streets, weeping, as the flag-draped coffin moved slowly by. It took so long that Maes's nerves were almost ready to snap, a good while before they finally arrived at the military cemetery. But Gracia was there with the other military spouses, having left Elysia with a babysitter. And once Roy's closest friends and associates had taken the coffin from the carriage and carried it to the gravesite, and had set it on the broad straps stretched across the open grave, Gracia slid her arm around Maes's waist, taking her place beside him. Maybe he'd make it through the ceremony now.

After the long procession through the streets, the ceremony itself was mercifully brief. Both the Fuhrer and the Mayor of Central gave short speeches extolling Colonel Roy Mustang's great service to his country and the city, but that was about it. Roy's people had been asked earlier if any of them wished to speak, but all of them had known that they'd be pretty much incapable when the time came, and so declined. They knew, among them, exactly what they all had thought of their colonel. And it didn't matter to them if they couldn't express it to the rest of the onlookers.

As the first clods of dirt began to be shoveled down onto the lowered coffin, Riza stepped to the edge of the hole, reaching into her pocket. As she and Maes had arranged, she pulled out the two pairs of spare ignition gloves they'd found in Roy's side table in his bedroom, and dropped them on top of the coffin. They had cut a chunk out of each array on the backs of the gloves, so they could never be used by anyone again, to create fire.

Almost immediately Maes heard a sobbing gulp at his side, and reached a blind hand out to settle it on Ed's shoulder. He blinked away his own tears until finally he couldn't stop them any longer. He stared down into the grave, at the warmly polished coffin gradually being covered over.

_Oh Roy_.

Friend, companion, brother, through their years at the academy and all the years since, surviving Ishbal and its aftermath, supporting each other through a thousand trials, sharing a thousand joys. Best man at his wedding. One of the few people in the world who knew and understood him. One of the few Maes would have given his life for, without question.

What torments Roy had gone through, those last two nights. Physically ill with compulsion and denial, shaking on the bathroom floor one night. Sitting at his kitchen table the next night, weeping as he agreed with Kimbley that there was no more hope for him.

He'd said it was time to take the burden off Maes's shoulders – the burden he believed his friendship had been. But Maes hadn't wanted this. Never this.

Still, he'd meant what he said to Ed and Al: this might have been the only correct choice it was possible to make, heart-wrenching though it was to admit it. In the end, Roy might have been wise in choosing this as his way out.

And at least now…he was at peace. The rest of them would mourn for a long time, especially knowing the things that had tortured him these last months. Ishbal had, after all, claimed yet another victim. And Kimbley had another death on his list of "Ishbal alchemists."

But Roy himself was free of it all. At last.

As the ceremony ended and everyone finally dispersed, Maes made sure to gather all of Roy's people and tell them they were to come to his house for dinner the next day. Once dinner was over, he'd decided, he would tell them all the whole story. But for now he just wanted to get home. Home to his little girl, and the first quiet evening he'd had with his family in what felt like months.

It was almost suppertime when he and Gracia got in, so while she quickly began to arrange soup and sandwiches for them, Maes played with Elysia. And he took pictures. He hadn't done that in a long time, either. He even built a fire in the fireplace, determined to restart his life properly.

When the phone rang, he almost jumped out of his skin. Walking into the kitchen, he met Gracia's eyes, and they smiled ruefully at each other. At least this time it wasn't the middle of the night, and it would never again be the calls they'd learned to dread. Just the ordinary, run-of-the-mill disasters from now on, he thought, in a burst of near-hysteria.

He picked up the receiver, "Hughes here," he said, smiling down at Elysia as she joined him, hugging one leg.

"Martin here," said the police chief. "I didn't know if I should bother you, right after the funeral, but I wanted to offer my condolences. I don't think I really have yet, what with all the preparations and so on."

"Thanks. I really appreciate it," Maes answered. "It's been hard on a lot of us. But don't worry, I wasn't bothered. I know you've really had your own hands full the last little while, helping with our case as well as your regular cases."

"It's been a tough time all around, recently, hasn't it? But speaking of that…we even had another development with our medical students."

"Oh? What sort of development?" Maes grabbed one of Elysia's pig tails and twirled it through his fingers.

"They swear it wasn't them, and they must be right, because we still had them in custody. But if it wasn't them…well, who knows? It was the darnedest thing, Maes. There was another body-snatching. We were all so busy with that last fire that I forgot to mention it. This time it was one of the bodies that they'd already taken, some black-haired fellow we were keeping in the morgue for re-burial. The body disappeared right out of the morgue, would you believe, the same night as the fire. We were so busy we didn't notice till we took Mustang's body there. And so far we haven't found out who took it, or where. So the mysteries never end, do they?"

"No," Maes answered faintly, his fingers still. "They don't."

"Well, I won't keep you. I just wanted to say how sorry I am about Mustang, because I know you were good friends. If there's anything I can do for you in the future, just let me know."

"I will. Thanks."

Maes replaced the receiver. Behind him, dimly, he could hear the sounds of Gracia's preparations and Elysia's happy chatter to her mother as she stood with a casual arm around his leg. And a moment later, he began to hear Gracia's voice as well, asking, "Maes? Honey? Something the matter?"

He remained as he was, facing the wall, incapable of movement, thought, anything. A wave of cold washed over him, from his scalp to his toenails as he stared blankly at the wall.

_Oh, Roy,_ he thought.


End file.
